


Winds of Change 1: Autumn Storms

by AlterEgon



Series: Winds of Change [1]
Category: Enchantment Emporium - Tanya Huff, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Conspiracy, Crossover, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Sex used as a power source for magic, TW:Injury to hands, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 93,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: After a mission goes awry for Alec and his team, they find themselves in unlikely company, making new friends and learning things they never would have believed possible.As they try to make sense of what is happening, they begin to uncover something that will draw doubt on anything they have believed in so far.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Season 2; I haven't actually read the books, but through friends who have, I sometimes borrow very minor things from there (such as middle names of characters). This is all. 
> 
> So, do you need to know the second canon to make sense of this? Hopefully not. Given the relative popularity, I've tried to make it so that you can enter the story exactly as clueless about the Gale family as the Lightwoods do, and still make sense of it.  
> Annex section can (will) be found after the last chapter.
> 
> There's a first time for everything, and this is my first time actually having a full thank-you section with a fic. There were just a lot of people involved in the creation of this.  
> So here goes:  
> Thank you to Tao, for general bouncing of ideas and listening to multiple performances of rewritten scenes, keeping me in warm socks and creative inspiration.  
> Thank you also to Gaurungi for feedback on how much sense the fic made for a reader who didn't know either canon.  
> Further thanks go to my dear F., parrot-wrangler and research assistant, for enthusiastic cheerleading and threatening to make me sleep on the couch if I didn't produce at least 500 words of good-night story for him – and also for making sure I eat. Love you.  
> Last but definitely not least, my special thanks go to our own J.C. You're the oddest, weirdest, strangest beta-reader I've ever worked with. It's been a rare pleasure, even if you have been known to wake us up in the wee hours to make sure we knew you were tired. Here's to many happy returns.

_October 21 st, 2016_

She wasn't quite awake enough to remember what exactly had gone wrong, but she had a nagging feeling that she would be very upset once she figured it out. It was a rather vague feeling, though, just like everything was feeling a little too vague right now. For one thing, she was pretty sure that her current posture was excruciatingly unpleasant and she should have been doing something about that.

She blinked, looking into a sky that seemed impossibly blue above her, and made a half-hearted attempt at focusing. She wasn't sure why she bothered, but something told her that doing nothing was actually not an acceptable course of action.

The fog in her mind was too thick, though, shutting down any attempt of coming to a decision. In fact, she was feeling drowsier by the second.

Something moved into her view. Maybe she was, in fact, dreaming. That must be it. Why else would she be lying on her back, staring into the sky, and having a magnificent deer come to check up on her?

Satisfied that there was nothing actually wrong, and all she needed to do was to continue sleeping until she woke up, she let her eyes drift shut again.

*

Grateful for the charms that kept everyone outside of the family away from his caches, David changed and stepped into the jeans and sneakers deposited there for him. He was already running back the way he had come when he started pulling on his t-shirt. He hadn't bothered with anything else.

In human form, finding the spot was a little more difficult. It had been warded heavily, marked with enough glyphs to keep away even the most inquisitive person, and probably a fair number of dwellers of the Underrealm as well, should they happen to pass.

Of course, nothing kept him out of anything – certainly not here. Not in his park.

As a stag, he had barely registered the charms until he had been almost on top of them. That in itself was some reason for concern. He should have felt the creation of this setup. He'd have to look into that later.

His human eyes tried to slide off of the spot, deflected by the suggestion to look elsewhere, that there was nothing there to see anyway…

He knew better, and all it took was a small exertion of will.

There was a young woman tied up on the ground – staked out, really. There was no other term for it. She formed the center of a design he'd never seen before. She wasn't moving, other than the slight rise and fall of her chest with every breath. Her eyes, open before, were closed now. Her clothes were gone – if they had ever been in the park with her at all. Purpling bruises suggested that she had not been a willing participant in this procedure, and that she had not gone down easily. He hoped she had gotten in a few good kicks of her own and that whoever was responsible for this was going to remember it for a good long time.

There was something else, though, and that something suggested even more than the wards around her that this might become a family matter more than a police one: Her body was covered in charms – but they weren't the charms you would have expected on a sacrifice or whatever she was supposed to be.

Of course, he didn't know a great deal about sacrifices. He was pretty sure one didn't tattoo a speed charm onto one's victim, though. Or a strength charm. Or an accuracy one, for that matter. Never mind the night vision or the dexterity.

There were other charms, some of which made more sense than others, and some of which he had never seen before, but he assumed the aunties would have something to say about those. Why anyone would go to the effort of tattooing on a charm was beyond him.

He took a picture of the entire setup on his phone – easier than trying to describe what he had seen to the aunties when they asked – and they were going to ask.

Slipping the phone back into the pocket it had come from, he bent down to erase the charms around the woman, taking care to leave the ones that kept people from noticing what was going on intact. The last thing he needed now was to be mistaken for the person who had done this.

A few quickly sketched charms of his own dispensed with the need to find a knife or untangle the knots in the straps that held her by the wrists and ankles. Whoever the person behind this was, he hadn't taken any chances that his charms weren't going to be enough to keep her where he wanted her.

Too bad for him that he'd chosen this specific place.

The woman didn't stir when he scooped her up.

*

Allie's eyes took on that brief, faraway look that she had when she connected to some part of the city or another. A moment later, she turned to her husband.

"Graham, can you go downstairs and let David in? And make sure you get a good look through the door before you open it."

If that raised the question of why David was delivering whatever it was that kept him from opening the door on his own here instead of to the aunties, considering they lived right by the park, it provided the answer just as well: The large windows in the shop front were treated with a Clearsight charm, revealing the true nature of whoever – whatever – was coming in to anyone inside who was susceptible to the charms. While not family by blood, Graham's special status as a seventh son of a seventh son gave him an edge over most outsiders. That included use of the Clearsight.

He came downstairs just as David's car pulled up on the sidewalk.

He waited while the older man removed something large and uncooperative from his car and straightened.

Through the windows of the store, David was a tall man with dark blond hair that reached the collar of his t-shirt and an impressive rack of antlers over his head that shouldn't have fit through the doorway, never mind into a car.

The burden he carried in his arms was a young woman, black-haired, wrapped in a thin blanket and looking just a little faded against the solid backdrop that was David, who stood in place for a moment to give him a good view.

Graham unlocked the door and held it open.

"What the hell?" he asked the moment David had stepped inside.

"Found her in the park like this," David said without stopping on his way to the back door – the one that said _Employees only_. Graham jumped to open that door wider. "She's not waking up, and I'm not sure what exactly is going on with her. Did you get a look at her?"

 "She looked just as she does now," Graham said. "A bit faded."

"Faded? Like what Allie said Joe looked like when he was being called back under the Hill?"

Locking the front door again, Graham shrugged even though David wasn't looking his way. "No idea. I never saw Joe through the window before Allie locked him in place. She was just a bit blurrier than you were."

For good measure, they glanced into the magical mirror as David passed, which amused itself by showing David on hooves, with the tattooed woman feeding him an apple from her hand.

"Oh, please," David snorted.

The mirror didn't care.

Allie wasn't waiting for them in the large central room. Graham hadn't bothered to close the apartment door, but now the door to the spare bedroom down the short hall that connected the two parts of the apartment stood open as well, suggesting that she had decided that even a sofa that folded out into a queen-sized bed wasn't the right place to keep a mystery guest.

David crossed the distance with a few quick strides.

"Did you call the aunties?" He put down his passenger on the bed, looking at his younger sister as he straightened.

"Do we need the aunties?" She asked back.

He snorted in a way that wasn't entirely human. "Look at her – this doesn't seem like a matter for the emergency room. She won't wake up – and trust me, I've tried everything I could think of. "

"Have you tried kissing her?" Auntie Gwen's voice sounded from the hallway. Of course she'd be the first to arrive at the scene. She was the only auntie who lived in the same building with them.

"We're not in a fairy tale, Auntie Gwen," David said, though he bent forward anyway and breathed a kiss onto the woman's cheek.

Nothing happened.

"See?"

Gwen scoffed. "Of course that requires a full kiss in the proper location."

"Seriously?"  David asked.

Allie rolled her eyes.

"Of course not!" Gwen shook her head and pushed past the younger generation to look down at the stranger. The blanket she was still wrapped in had opened far enough to reveal some of her tattoos. "Why would anyone tattoo on charms?"

"Maybe she saw the designs and liked them," Graham suggested. "Which would mean she has the Sight and was somewhere near family."

Allie folded the blanket farther apart to get a better look. "Maybe she _is_ family. Not our family," she added quickly, feeling protest rise behind her. "Another branch, different customs?"

"Unlikely," Gwen declared. "We don't even know if those other branches still exist. And if she were, she'd be far from home."

"Charlie travels," Allie pointed out. "So does Jack, so does my grandmother. So, for that matter, do Charlie's sisters, and they aren't even Wild." She sketched a charm on the woman's forehead.

Their unconscious guest stirred briefly, her eyelids fluttering for a moment before calming down again.

"I recognize most of her charms," David said. "But not all of them. Maybe one of the others is what's locking her down."

Gwen shook her head emphatically. "I can't tell what two or three of them are, but none of them seem to say 'sleep for a hundred years'." She considered for another moment. "Bea, Carmen and Trisha will be here any moment. Alysha, call Charlotte. She has songs that put people to sleep; she might have a song to wake her up. She's less likely to pretend she lost her phone again if you call her."

"I'm sure they're on their way," Allie said. "I texted her while Graham brought David up."

Footsteps coming down from the roof accompanied her words. "They're here," Charlie said as she came to a halt just inside the door. She looked down at the unconscious woman on the bed. "Wow. This is different." She listened, her head cocked to one side as if trying to tell where a particular piece of music was coming from.

"I can hear her song, but it's kept under by something. Did you check her charms?"

"I did when I got her in the car," David said. "Three I've never seen before, this one several times." He pointed at the tattoo placed on her cleavage and reaching down between her breasts. "Nothing that seems likely to keep her out. No hexes. I'd know if the Fey had anything to do with this. So would Allie."

"Neither of us noticed her being dropped there," Allie pointed out, concerned but realistic about the situation. "We know there are ways to get into places undetected."

Charlie looked at her cousin, her eyebrows raised. "You don't think Auntie Catherine has a hand in this, do you?"

Allie shook her head. "I'd know if _she_ came out of the Wood here, no matter how much she charms the inside of her passageway, but that's because I have her, specifically, on my blacklist. Was she brought through the Wood?"

The older woman shrugged. "I don't have Jack's nose. I can't tell."

"Where is Jack anyway?" Gwen demanded.

"Fixing a bit of a mess outside. Allie sounded like it was urgent, so we hurried, and someone saw us land. He'll be right up." She pulled her guitar around from where she had carried it on her back. "Look, why don't you check her for hidden charms once again, just to be safe, while I make sure I'm tuned properly?" Odd things happened if her guitar wasn't tuned well, and this particular guitar tended to go off given the slightest excuse. Unfortunately, that was usually the case with a blooded instrument, and those were the ones she did the strongest work with.

Auntie Gwen looked about to say something, but Allie nodded resolutely. "Good idea."

Unwrapping the blanket, she handed it back to David. It belonged in his car after all. Then, gently moving the woman's body around, they went over every inch of tattooed skin, cataloguing the charms they found.

"We still don't know what these three do," she concluded when they were done. "Though that one kind of looks like a variation on a Constitution charm. Nothing that suggests sleep."

Charlie had finished the fine-tuning on her guitar by then and was standing ready, pick in hand.

"What are you going to do?" David asked. "Play a lullaby backwards to wake her?" He sounded genuinely interested.

She shook her head. "I think I'll need something a bit more suggestive."

She had taken the time Allie and Gwen had spent on their examination to settle on a song, humming the first lines along before adding more force to her playing and starting to sing.

They could see a twitch run through the woman, eyes moving under closed lids, hands tensing almost imperceptibly. Charlie's voice and music grew more insistent, calling to her to follow it out of whatever dark place she was trapped in – and trapped she was, well and truly. Charlie could feel the resistance she was singing up against, like a tug of war on the woman's awareness, two forces pulling her in different directions.

She stopped her song with a hand on the strings.

"I can probably force her out," she said, though she didn't sound entirely convinced. "There's something fighting me, but I can get past it. What I don't know is that I can get _all_ of her and that the strain won't break anything. I'm not sure she's even quite aware which way is the one she _should_ be following."

"So what do you suggest, Charlotte?" Gwen wanted to know.

Charlie shrugged as she placed her guitar against the wall, where no one was likely to trip over it. "Wait. Let the others arrive. Consult. Figure something out."

Her suggestion to wait for the other aunties to come in was enough to make Gwen believe that she meant what she had said.

They were preceded by the arrival of Jack, however, who came in shaking his head and mumbling something about a Pokémon Go publicity gag.

"What?" Auntie Gwen asked him, half-turning in his direction. "Are you thinking about a career change? Dragon to Pokémon?"

Jack snorted. "Might just do that. Have you ever heard of a dragon writing for a newspaper before?" He wasn't strictly speaking on Graham's regular payroll, but he still delivered articles now and then. He would have never admitted that he actually liked turning some of the less mundane things he and Charlie got involved in into stories that were just unbelievable enough to pass muster.

Gwen turned back towards their guest. "Haven't heard of a Pokémon writing for a newspaper before either," she scoffed. "Can we stay on subject here? Sleeping Beauty doesn't seem willing to grace us with her actual presence."

Jack – Gale Wild Power, Dragon Prince, Sorcerer and part-time journalist – raised his eyebrows. "The traditional remedy requires application of a Prince," he quipped. "Typically you apply the Prince's lips to the Princess's, and that does the trick. Did you check her fingers?"

Gwen scowled at him. "Jack Archibald Gale, I'd thank you to take this a bit more seriously. Why would we check her fingers?"

"Spindle prick marks," Jack helped her out. "They've been known to cause long, deep sleeps." He sniffed the air surreptitiously "Seriously, though - does she smell funny to any of you?"

Several pairs of eyes turned towards him.

"Funny how?" Charlie asked after a moment.

"Like something I really wouldn't want to eat."

"She smells like onions?"

Jack rolled his eyes, though he was grinning as he did so. "Yeah well, I don't assume that's her normal smell. But no – not onions." He sobered up, his voice dead-serious now. "You want to check her for prick marks after all if you haven't yet. I'd rather assume someone put some poison into her."

"Well, that would explain more than it doesn't."

Charlie, more familiar than most of the family with the less savory parts of the world outside of their perimeters, pushed past her relatives to unfold the woman's arms from where Allie had placed them over their guest's body. Sketching a magnification charm on her eyelids, she examined the most likely locations before moving on to other areas. If they kept this up, she would be more intimately familiar with this woman's anatomy than she had any right to be by the time they were done.

"We have a winner," she announced as she straightened and pivoted to face the aunties – plural now. Focused on her work, she hadn't even noticed the other three arrive. She pointed, assuming they had been filled in by someone. "And also some runners-up. Puncture number one is here on her thigh. I'll say this is the oldest one. It's placed a bit randomly, like she wasn't exactly holding still. It looks like she was still fighting around the needle."

Auntie Bea had pushed to the front and was applying magnification charms as well to get a look.

Charlie gave her a moment before she moved on, pointing to the side of the woman's neck. "There are two more here. We might have found the other one by accident, but these are right in the line of the charm here. She must have been out when they went in, or at least not moving anymore.

The grey head bent over their patient to follow where Charlie's finger pointed nodded. "So she has anything from three doses of one substance to three single doses of different things in her, plus assorted charms we don't know, plus potential sorcery – What?" Apparently Auntie Bea DID have eyes in the back of her head, because she had reacted immediately to the tensing that went through everyone in the room except for Jack, who stood by the door, his arms loosely crossed and looking for all the world as if none of this concerned him. "I saw the photos David snapped, and slipping that setup past Alysha is quite a feat, so assuming we have some sorcery in the mix isn't that wild."

Allie ignored that as she turned to Jack. "You smelled it first. Can you tell what she was given, or how many things?"

She got a shrug in response. "I'm a dragon, not a pharmacist."

"You don't get to quote Star Trek while you're still only halfway through Deep Space Nine," Auntie Carmen snapped at him.  "Not even in a dragonized version."

"Savvy." Jack said. He had watched all parts of Pirates of the Caribbean that were out already, as well as one that wasn't. Surely he was allowed to quote that. "But the answer remains. I have no idea."

"I suggest a generalized antidote and cleansing potion," Auntie Gwen said after another moment's contemplation. "That can't hurt in any case. Put some charms on the injection points for good measure, and Charlotte can try reaching her with a song again in a bit." She barely waited for Auntie Bea's nod before she turned and marched out to raid her potions cabinet.

She wouldn't be long. There was no way she didn't have general-purpose potions in plenty of supply. Potion-making had once been a sideline of the store downstairs, back when it had still been a one-woman enterprise run by Allie's grandmother Catherine. Since they'd arrived, they hadn't only branched out the family, but also the business. With Joe in charge of the sales staff and administration of the mailboxes and Allie taking care of the background work of cataloguing – after seven years, they still weren't through Auntie Catherine's basement storage rooms, and it wasn't like there wasn't new stuff coming in every so often – Gwen had firmly taken over the potions end of things. Most Gale girls dabbled, but some of the Aunties maintained veritable potion labs that would have done Severus Snape proud.

First circle may have held the most power, backed by the most experience, but second circle was naturally bent towards care and nurture, and Allie's connection as the family's female anchor to Calgary gave her charms an extra edge.

"A needle," she said. "We might as well do this all the way."

Auntie Bea pulled a pin from the sleeve of her blouse. Whether she'd put it there precisely for the purpose that Allie was about to use it for or simply because she'd been sewing when David's message arrived and she had had to stow it away somewhere didn't really matter. When Allie needed a needle, there was a needle.

When a Gale needed a needle, it also was highly unlikely that said needle would be contaminated with anything dangerous, and so Allie didn't hesitate to plunge its point into the tip of her finger, pressing out a little blood to draw the charm with. You couldn't get any more powerful than blood charms.

The three small charms stood out starkly against the woman's skin, visible even over the black line of the tattoo on her neck. The first hadn't done much, but the second and third had seemed to seethe for a moment before settling. Allie took note of it with a raised eyebrow. No magic on the first puncture then – or maybe it had already dissipated.

Charlie got herself a chair and settled down comfortably with her guitar, playing notes and trying to catch pieces of the unknown woman's song. She could feel the power that would be behind it once it was freed, but at the moment, it felt rather like the barely heard bass of rock music played behind walls just too well insulated to disturb the neighbors. This wasn't a sheltered princess – that much was clear. She wondered idly if she should have mentioned that to the others.

*

There were people around her. She'd heard them talk. Something about eating… something about poison…

There were words she knew should have raised an alarm in her, but she couldn't quite get herself to care. The fog pressing in on her mind was still too dense.

A touch so cold it was almost painful, like ice fresh from a freezer, bloomed against her thigh, then another one on the side of her neck. She was still wondering if she should try to raise her hand to wipe it away when someone jostled her.

Her head fell to one side. The position started to be unpleasant, and this time she actually tried to do something about it. She got no reaction out of her body. It was there but not there in some strange, remote way. It didn't really matter what happened to it, did it?

The ice had been different. That had felt real.

It was gone now.

Something touched her lips. Fluid spilled onto her tongue.

She swallowed, out of reflex rather than anything else.

Thirsty. She realized that she was thirsty, more so than one cup could quench. Her connection to the feeling was still vague, but she was glad that the cup was refilled for her even without her saying anything about it.

There must have been something wrong with the drink, though. It left behind an odd feeling. She could trace its course down her throat and into her stomach by it, where it settled, condensed, and then, slowly, started to spread out through her.

The fog thickened.

The next thing she noticed was music. There'd been music before, calling. Asking something of her. It had been too far away, too diluted by the cotton that cushioned her awareness.

Someone had been singing then. This time, there was only music. Notes played on a guitar, the tune sounding random.

"Got you now."

A woman's voice. It was the first time in what felt like a very long time to her that words made real sense. She wanted to ask her who she'd been chasing, but her body wouldn't respond. She tried to lift a hand. It didn't budge. She was awake now, or mostly so, but still caught - somewhere. She had lost all connection to her body. Maybe this was the right moment to panic.

She fought the reaction down. She _was_ connected to her body. She could hear the music.

The music changed.

The woman started to sing.

She could have sworn she felt the notes on her skin.

Something about the song snagged at her attention.

It sounded like an invitation, and offer to show her the way out from where she was. Could it be? Could she follow the music out of whatever place she was trapped in?

The song sank into her, and she let it. She could feel the moment it connected, like tiny hooks sinking into what it was to be her. She clung on to the immaterial tether of the song and started hauling herself up along it.

A thousand years of sleep, the song said. Let it not have been a thousand years! Songs didn't need to be literal, did they?

She almost burst into silent laughter in spite of her situation. She was stuck somewhere in her body and trying to pull herself out by a _song_. Who cared about literal?

She forced her eyes open just as the last syllable faded.

She was in a bedroom, furnished blandly as compared to her own. It rather looked like a mundane bedroom, actually. Or it would have if there hadn't been a rune blazing in the middle of the open window.

She blinked.

The rune didn't go away. It just hung there in the air by itself.

Without thinking, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her body obeyed her now. She was still thirsty, and worse than before – as if her climb out of darkness had required physical effort.

The guitar was still playing, though the music had calmed, the tune merely a background sound now. The musician was a woman, somewhat older than herself, dark green hair held out of her face with a sweatband. She was dressed all in denim, clothes good for travelling but of limited advantage in a fight. The runes drawn on her hands, her cheek and at the base of her neck, where her collar fell away to expose skin, looked wrong.

Actually, they looked as if someone had stolen some of Magnus Bane's glitter and drawn just a suggestion of runes on her.

Her hands never stilled as she smiled. "Hey," she said, her voice as musical as was to be expected from a musician. "I'm Charlie Gale. Welcome back."

"Izzy Lightwood." Izzy shifted, pulling her legs closer to her body to get into a more comfortable position. She realized she was naked under the covers. That wasn't her most pressing problem right now, though. "Where are the others?"


	2. Chapter 2

The playing stopped.

"Which _others_?" The musician asked her, a demanding tone to her voice that was hard to resist.

"Alec, Jace, Clary – What happened to them? And Magnus?"

Charlie put her guitar down and leaned forward. "You had friends with you?"

"Of course!" Izzy said. "We were –" She realized what the words meant. "They're not here?"

The other woman shook her head slightly. "I'll get the others – _my_ others. I suspect we need a few more people to get to the bottom of this one."

*

Charlie's "others" turned out to be more people than comfortably fit into the room, as far as Izzy was concerned. They didn't seem to mind. There were four grandmotherly-looking women seated on chairs, facing her almost like a tribunal. While their appearance might have been harmless at first glance, Izzy recognized a predator when she saw one, and these women were anything but safe to be around if angered – she was sure of that. They also had eyes so dark it was impossible to tell where the pupil ended and the iris began.

A man had taken position behind them. He moved like a practiced fighter, always aware of his surroundings, always perfectly balanced.

Charlie had taken her chair off to the side again, picked up her guitar and held it ready as if she was going to play any moment. A younger man with blond hair and grey eyes stood just behind her. No matter how affectionate his expression turned every time he laid eyes on Charlie, he sent every instinct Izzy had screaming at her to watch out.

Another woman entered, carrying a plate of … pancakes?

She pushed past everyone else and set her burden down on the bedside table. "No need to let her go hungry," she responded to the bristling of one of the jury.

Without another word, she joined Fighter, linking her arm through his.

Every single one of them was marked with the same odd runes. If that was a glamor they were using, she didn't see the point in it. There were other runes in the room, too, and they all had that strange look – including the one in the window. That one was, Izzy had figured out in the meantime, placed on a fly-screen.

"Alysha is right, child," the first of the older women spoke up. "Eat. This will surely be easier with some food in your stomach."

Izzy was about to protest, but as she inhaled and the scent of freshly baked pancakes entered her nose, her stomach overruled her with a forceful rumble. How long had it been since she'd eaten?

Alright then. She was going to eat while she talked. She gave the woman as much of a glare for calling her a child as she could manage in her current situation.

Alysha spoke up again. "I realize this must be quite confusing for you, Izzy. I promise, we're going to do what we can to help you find your friends. We'll have to know as much as you can tell us about what happened." She hesitated a fraction of a moment. "As you just heard, I'm Alysha. Allie. This here's my husband, Graham. The ladies are our Aunties Bea, Carmen, Trisha and Gwen." She pointed as she spoke, then gestured vaguely in the direction of Charlie and the man Izzy kept watching from the corner of her eye. "And that's Jack. You know Charlie already."

'Know' was saying a bit too much, but she guessed having just been freed from a prison inside her own mind by the woman had to count for something.

She knew she should have asked questions of her own, demanded some answers, but here she was – alone, without her weapons, without her stele, without her phone, without as much as her clothes – and they outnumbered her. She was going to have to take the chance and just stay alert.

*

_October 18 th, 2016_

"Remind me, why are we doing this?" Jace swung his blade, bringing it up until the blunt side rested on his shoulder.

Alec was striding ahead, just short of running, but moving fast enough that everyone else had to put in an extra step every so often to keep up with his longer legs.

"Because that's the order we got," Alec declared without slowing.

Their blond brother ran a few steps to catch up with his _parabatai_. "I know that," he said. "But why are _we_ doing _this_?"

Izzy didn't need to hear the answer to know it. Neither, she assumed, did Jace.

"Because at the moment, he's in charge, and if we refuse his orders, we will end up benched the same way he did it with you last time." There. He'd said it.

She glanced at Clary and saw her look mirrored in the other woman's eyes.

They'd expected things to happen after Valentine's death by Lake Lyn. They'd expected changes.

They'd been hopeful for changes to the better. Hadn't they just proven that they could only gain from working together with downworlders, rather than against them? Hadn't Alec proven himself more than capable of running his Institute even when times were hard? That he could keep a clear head and not let personal matters interfere?

Things had changed alright.

The first thing they'd known after they'd come back from the victory party held at the Hunter's Moon was that a message had come. With immediate effect, Alec was to be replaced as head of the institute.

Someone with more experience was required, it had said. Especially now, after everything that had happened.

Then the replacement had arrived, and, out of all the impossible people that could have been picked for it, it was Victor Aldertree, the one man they all would have been more than happy to never lay eyes on again: A man who, by all rights, should still have been under investigation in Idris.

With a self-satisfied smirk on his handsome face, Aldertree had moved into Alec's office, gotten comfortable there, and issued orders. Once again, all Downworlders were banned from the Institute. Until further notice, he'd said. He was going to consider what Magnus' punishment was to be for his decision to side with the Seelie Queen.

A report on unidentified activity had come in, and he had chosen to send the four of them to investigate. Go there, check it out, come back and report. Do not intervene. It was the kind of order he should have given some rookies still learning the ropes, but not three of the best-trained shadowhunters in the Institute and the woman who had single-handedly killed Valentine.

But Alec had turned down Jace's suggestion that they talk to Imogen Herondale about that, at least for the moment, and now they were lined up in front of the building, weapons in hand.

The door was only leaning against the frame. Alec put one hand on it. If they were to investigate anything here, they would have to go inside. They couldn't see anything more suspicious than the unlocked door, but the place had a distinctly uncanny feel to it. Something _was_ off here.

"Hello?" he called. "Anyone home?"

There was no response. He pushed, letting the door swing open.

Sliding through, they took position again.

They were in a narrow hallway that they traversed on high alert, moving half sideways to protect each other's backs.

Another door.

A room, large, bare, save for a threadbare sofa. On it, motionless, twisted into a position that no one would voluntarily take while awake, lay—

"Magnus!" Alec jumped forward, caution forgotten at the sight.

The three of them followed close behind, still processing what was going on. The last time any of them had seen Magnus had been the day before just as Aldertree had had him escorted from the Institute.

Something dropped from above, somewhere to their right. The sound of shattering glass drew Izzy's attention.

She spotted a broken container on the floor, fumes rising from the shards. Her gaze turned upwards.

The room was easily twice as high as was normal. The walls in the upper portion had been removed, with a railing running around the room to make it accessible from the sides.

Two more bottles dropped and broke.

She couldn't spot who was throwing them. She could, however, smell the gas they emitted.

"Alec!" she pointed. "We need to get out of here!"

Then all hell broke loose.

*

_October 21 st, 2016_

Izzy paused to have another pancake. Somewhere between their arrival at the non-cottage and their discovery of an unconscious Magnus, another woman had come in briefly, and, indicating for her to continue talking, put a cup of coffee and a glass of water, along with a pitcher for refilling, next to the plate. She'd patted her arm reassuringly as she'd turned to leave again.

True to her own resolve to stay alert, Izzy noticed the look that passed between her and Alysha, though it didn't seem connected to _her_. Neither did the mouthed "Edward" and the subsequent eye-roll. She was apparently not the only thing going on here.

Not wanting to scald her mouth on hot coffee, and not sure she could pace herself – the sweetness of the pancakes had only increased the background feeling of thirst she'd woken up with and ignored – Izzy tried the water. It tasted fresh, as if taken straight from a mountain spring.

*

_October 19 th, 2016_

Izzy woke to bright light shining into the room. She started to jerk upwards, only to be yanked back painfully by ties that secured her to whatever surface she was lying on.

Memory rushed in. A group of warriors had poured into the room, their faces obscured, swords drawn.

All four of them had snapped into a fighting stance.

Things got blurry after that, but it couldn't have lasted for long. She'd felt the vapors worm their way into her body with every breath she took, and the exertion forced her to inhale. She thought it was the gas that dropped her in the end, not a blow, but she wasn't sure.

It appeared that no one had killed them, though.

Turning her head, she saw Alec, secured to a bench with manacles of some dull, dark material that didn't look like steel. They were marked with runes.

On her other side, Clary fared no better. She thought she'd seen a glimpse of Jace behind her brother.

"Alec? Jace? Clary?" She waited, but got no answer. Torn between trying to wake them up by shouting, and caution telling her to stay as quiet as she could and wait for them to come around on their own, Izzy started to gather information.

What she could see of the room they were in seemed at odds with the benches they were on. The walls were hung with fine fabrics, the floor carpeted where she could see it. The ceiling was painted in gaudy designs. A crate that she could just make out at the corner of her eye if she twisted as far as her bonds would allow seemed lavish even for institute standards.

The gas still seemed to affect her, though. Her vision was a bit off. Things weren't meeting at quite the right angles, but she couldn’t put her finger on the problem.

A door opened, the swish just barely audible to her.

There was a sigh. "You're not supposed to fight it off that quickly," someone muttered, the voice sounding annoyed in the way you got annoyed over a minor inconvenience that you had to remove before you could continue with your work.

There didn't seem any point to pretend she was still out, so she strained to see who - what - was coming towards her.

It was a tall figure, features nearly impossible to make out against the glare of the light. Male, she figured based on body shape. Something glinted in his hand.

Recognizing a syringe, thinking of Valentine, Izzy threw herself against her shackles.

*

_October 21 st, 2016_

"I don't remember anything else until the music," Izzy concluded, shaking her head. No, that wasn't quite right. "I mean, there were bits and pieces. Moments where I was almost awake but not really. I think I hallucinated some. A deer." She rubbed the spot on her thigh where the needle had pricked her through the duvet. "Ice."

The first of the older ladies – Bea, if she remembered Allie's introductions correctly – shook her head. "The 'ice' was Alysha's charm," she said. "To counter the poison you were given. The 'deer' was David." She sketched the quotation marks in the air around both words. "He found you."

Izzy's eyes grew wide. "You keep a pet _deer_?"

"He's a stag, and he's not a pet," Allie said. She bent forward over the older women's shoulders and handed Izzy her phone, the picture gallery pulled up already. "This is how you were found. Do you recognize anything about the setup?"

Izzy studied the picture, enlarging parts of it and scrolling around on the screen. With only small sections visible in magnification, it was easier to ignore that fact that that was her own body strapped down at the center of the design.

"I've never seen anything like this," she said. "I mean, I know some of these runes. A lot of these I've never seen before. They must be demonic runes… I can't imagine the Silent Brothers or the Iron Sisters behind this, and the only other person I know who uses runes that are not in the Gray Book is Clary. I—" She squinted at Allie, then at Graham by her side. "What's up with _your_ runes anyway? They're weird."

It wasn't just the sheen they had – slightly differing in quality, as Izzy saw upon closer inspection, and ranging from the look of sun reflected off slightly moistened skin to a line drawn in full Magnus-grade glitter. Some of the runes she could see mirrored the ones she herself wore exactly. Others were slightly wrong. The one Graham had right in the middle of his forehead, for one. It looked like someone had merged a lock, a loyalty and a shielding charm into one design.

"Says the girl who has charms tattooed all over her body," the old woman at the opposite end of the line remarked drily.

"Weird how?" Allie asked, almost at the same time.

"They aren't tattoos," Izzy said, her mouth working faster than her brain. Turning to Allie, she gestured at some of the ones she could see. "They don't look real. Like they're there but not there. And they're shaped wrong. Some of them are." What the hell was she doing? The words were rushing out of her without giving her the time to filter out what she should or shouldn't be telling these strangers.

The old woman – Gwen, Izzy remembered, her name was Gwen – held out her hand for Izzy's inspection. It was marked for precision, steadiness and speed. "They're charms," she supplied. "So whatever you are, you have the Sight. Good to know."

Izzy glared at her. "Of course, I have the Sight! I'd be a pretty damned poor shadowhunter without it!"

"A what?" Bea asked.

There was a low, rumbling chuckle from Jack. "They're some kind of order or cult who're hunting demons," he said. "I've heard of them while I was at the Court. Never met one until now."

"We're _not_ a cult," Izzy declared. "Nor an order, really. We're more like… like… " There wasn't one single word that really fit. "We protect the mundanes from those that would harm them. We uphold the Accords. We're – What court are you talking about?"

The assembled women exchanged glances Izzy couldn't place. Jack leaned against the wall, his arms loosely crossed in front of his chest. "I spent some time Under the Hill for training."

She blinked. Under the Hill was a euphemism for—"At the _Seelie_ Court?"

"By any other name," Jack said. "We call them fey. But yeah, I've heard them called seelie. Our Court didn't have dealings with your people. They got better things to do."

Now that was confusing. "What do you mean by 'our' court?" There was only the one – was there?

"The one I apprenticed with," Jack said. "The one settled closest to the portal I use, closest to where I grew up. The one I knew most of." He chuckled again, and there seemed to be some smoke coming out of his nose as he did so. "You didn't think Faerie was ruled by a single king or queen, did you? Nothing that large and yet so divided can stick together under a single rule for long."

The words hit her with more force than they should have. She wanted to deny them – they went against things she had been taught all her life. Nevertheless, something about the way he spoke told her he wasn't lying.

"Are you seelie?" She should have been able to tell. She looked at him again, twisting her mind to look past any seelie glamor he may have been wearing.

He looked older beneath. The gold of his eyes was more pronounced, their angle a bit more cat-like. A vertical scar was clearly visible down the side of his face, giving him a more warrior-like look. The runes on him hadn't changed. But the seelie couldn't use runes.

"What are you?"

"My father was human," he said, with only the tiniest hesitation before the last word. "My mother wasn't."

Izzy processed that and came to the only logical conclusion. "You're a warlock?" That certainly explained his looks. He didn't seem to know what to do with the word, so she elaborated. "Your mother was a demon?" This was getting weirder and weirder. She assumed there _had_ to be female demons – how else would demons make baby demons after all? But she'd never heard of them also mating with humans.

On the other hand, if they kept their children with them, they might never run into the result of such a union.

Jack, however, laughed. "No," he said. "Less human than that."

How could you be any less—

"Jack's half dragon," Allie supplied.

That had to be a joke. Izzy was about to say something to that effect, when Bea rapped her knuckles sharply on the wood of the bedside table. "Back on topic," she ordered in a voice that brooked no argument. "If they aren't tattoos, what are they?"

"We have steles to mark ourselves," Izzy supplied, too fast again. "The runes are sacred symbols that are burned into our skin and give us angelic powers. Did you put a compulsion on me?" The last came out quite indignantly.

"No." Bea said. "You ate Allie's pancakes."

What did the pancakes have to do with that? "If this is an attempt at diversion, it's not working."

Carmen, the woman next to Bea, sighed. "There's a truth charm in the pancakes," she supplied, her openness about it almost coming as a shock. She could have at least had the decency to deny it.

"Child, if your friends are out there in a similar situation in which we found you, we may not have the time to work through your attempts at filtering what information you think we should have." That was Bea again. She continued without giving Izzy the opportunity to respond. "In the past, this family would have given you clothes and maybe a bit of cash and sent you on your way, because matters outside of the family do not concern us. As Alysha and Charlotte keep pointing out, times have changed and we can no longer live apart from the world, but this does not mean that we will exert needless effort."

"I am not a child." It sounded petulant, and it shouldn't have been her main concern right now.

Bea sighed. "You're right." She admitted. "Izzy. Isadora? Isabelle?"

"Isabelle. And two of my friends are also my brothers. The other two are their partners. One's as dear as a sister to me." She could invoke the family card, too. "I'll do anything to get them back safely."

The old woman inclined her head. "Then you'll understand about not wasting time, Isabelle."

Izzy swallowed her response with a sigh. She had a point. Still… "I don't see what my runes have to do with finding them."

"Possibly nothing," Bea said. "But that," she gestured to the phone, or, more likely, the pictures on it, "wasn't random. Someone who goes to that much effort probably has chosen their centerpieces with care, and for good reason. So anything you tell us may end up relevant. If we understand what you are, we may get an idea of why you were chosen for this."

Something in that didn't add up. "I told you Aldertree sent us to investigate, didn't I?" Izzy said. "I don't think they planned to get us specifically."

The corner of Bea's mouth twitched. "If you believe that, then tell me why it was your friend, of all people, you found unconscious there?"

That gave her pause. "Wouldn't that mean that Aldertree somehow is involved in this?"

*

The interrogation went on for what felt like forever. After a few minutes, Gwen sent Jack for paper, and the supposed half-dragon not only left obediently but returned with a notepad and pen. He promptly handed them to Graham, who grumbled something about not being anyone's secretary and was cut off with a remark on his superior note-taking skills.

With a precisely measured motion borne of long practice, he snapped the notepad open and poised his pen, reminding Izzy of one of those pesky reporters who would try to turn anything into a story if you didn't get away fast enough.

At one point, Allie left for a while, whispering something into Gwen's ear that contained the names "Arthur" and "Adam", though Izzy didn't catch most of it. She returned after a while to take her former place again.

Eventually, the questions ran out. Bea snatched away the notepad and closed it. The gathering dissipated, leaving behind only Charlie and Jack.

"How are you feeling now?" Charlie asked her. She didn't exactly sound concerned. "Do you want to get some more rest, or should I see if I can find some clothes that fit you so you can join us in the living room?" A smirk pulled on her lips. "I mean – you can join us in the living room without clothes, too, but I assume you'd find that weird."

"Clothes would be nice," Izzy said. She did feel somewhat groggy, in a way she put down to the aftereffects of the poison she'd been given, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. While she didn't assume that any of _them_ had been under a truth spell, the others had answered her counter-questions as well, as long as she'd given them answers first. She thought it was time to do some reconnoitering of her own, though. "Wait – How many people are there going to be who are naked?"

Jack looked like he was actually counting in his mind.

Charlie elbowed him in the ribs. "None at this time of the year," she said.

*

Clothes had turned out to be more difficult than Charlie had expected. Apparently the general body shape of this family's women and that of Izzy weren't the best match imaginable. They did eventually find a pair of jeans that worked with a belt. A t-shirt wasn't a big problem, but the sweater she'd picked kept sliding off of one shoulder.

They'd left her alone in the bathroom so she could shower and freshen up, and told her to just come out to the living room when she was done.

Now she was standing in the doorway, still-moist hair clinging to her scalp, and took in the scene before her.

The living room was a combination of living/dining area and kitchen, and it was teeming with a sea of dark blonde heads, accented by Jack's lighter blond in one corner, two darker-haired men – one of them was Graham – and one red-head who was presently crawling under the table to retrieve something.

Four girls and a boy in their early teens shared one of the sofas, school work out on the table in front of them. How they could focus in the general din was beyond Izzy, but she suspected they had ample practice. A younger boy was playing pony on the backrest of the single armchair, ducking in a practiced motion when an identical-looking boy tossed a sofa cushion at him. A woman sitting on the second sofa with her laptop on her crossed legs snatched the missile out of the air before it could knock anything over, without taking her eyes off the screen. Izzy had to commend her reflexes.

There were a number of people clustered around the stove and in its general vicinity, moving in what looked like a well-rehearsed dance. One young woman broke away from them, brandishing a loaded plate. "Pancakes coming in. Put the work away!" she announced as she neared the dining table, where two men were seated with a sheaf of graph paper and mechanical pencils scattered around them.

Allie, standing between them, had been bent over their work with interest. Now she snatched the paper away and rolled it up. She fastened the roll with a rubber band she'd had around her wrist and stowed it away on top of a bookshelf.

Her companions were collecting their pencils, until one of them frowned at the plate. "Didn't you just say pancakes, Mel?"

"Yeah!" she replied brightly. "Pancakes. You know, flour, milk, egg, salt, mixed and baked… pancakes." She pointed at the plate.

"Mel…" The man's voice sounded amused. "There's nothing there."

Izzy, following the conversation, frowned. From where she was standing, the plate was loaded with pancakes.

Mel slapped at the man playfully. "Oh, Michael, don't try to be funny that way."

"I see a plate," the other man came to his defense. "What I _don't_ see are the pancakes."

"Don't be silly," the woman with the laptop said. She'd apparently also been eavesdropping and had looked up. "I can see the pancakes from over here. I can also smell them."

Both men sniffed.

"I do smell pancakes," one of them admitted.

Allie came back over. "There are definitely pancakes," she determined.

Half the kitchen team had turned around by now, looking back and forth between the pancakes and the two men.

"If Michael and Brian are denying the existence of pancakes, does that mean I can have their portions?" Jack asked without moving from where he was perusing a book.

Grabbing a fork, Allie snatched up the top-most one of the pancakes and studied it. "What did you bake into them?"

"Oh, just the Constitution variety your guest was wearing," someone said from the stove. "I thought it'd probably do her good to have one of her own charms."

Izzy glanced down at her runes and, with a jolt, realized what they must have "baked" into their pancakes. She walked over, stopping across from Allie to point at the two men. "Are these two mundanes?"

"Are we what?" Michael asked.

"Regular human beings with no magic, no extraneous body parts, no fey blood and nothing else that would give you any trouble if you showed up in an emergency room and had yourself examined by a doctor," Allie helped him out. They'd discussed terminology somewhat during Izzy's interrogation. "Yes. Why?"

"May I?" Izzy gestured at the pancake Allie was holding. The older woman transferred the fork to her.

Sure enough, the lines of the rune were just visible in the structure of the pancake. At least she could see now that the natural pancake-pattern mostly obscured it if you weren't specifically looking for it. A sprinkling of sugar or syrup would render it entirely invisible. She felt less bad about missing the Truth on the pancakes she had eaten. "That's a glamor rune, and that's not meant for kitchen use," she declared. She'd have to ask someone about what two mundanes were doing in the middle of this later.

They didn't seem particularly fazed by the information.

"What's it do?" Brian wanted to know.

"It casts a glamor," Izzy explained, a bit redundantly. "Specifically, it hides things from mundanes. It hides us from mundanes when we're working. You need to at least have the Sight to look through it. I don’t think anyone ever put it on pancakes before."

People had crowded around her by now, trying to get a glimpse of the pancake.

Someone was sternly admonishing one of the children about use of a mundane-glamor "charm" for the purpose of school pranks being entirely out of the question. Izzy saw the girl's eyes light up in a way that suggested she hadn't even thought of the option until that moment, but was now hard at work making up practical applications of it in her mind.

Michael pushed back his chair and got up.

"What are you …?" Allie started to ask.

He grabbed a bottle of syrup from the kitchen counter and opened it on his way back.

Izzy barely suppressed a gasp when she saw him from the front. He, too, had runes shining on his skin. Marking a mundane was not only entirely out of the question, it was immensely painful to them and led to madness and certain death in many cases.

Oblivious to that, Michael seized up the plate. "Deglamoring the pancakes," he said, pouring.

One thing was clear: The mundane's problem-solving skills hadn't suffered yet.

The red-head finally emerged from under the table, carrying an assortment of baby toys, something that looked like a featherduster that had been abused by a cat, two books and a handful of coins. "Don't drown the pancakes, Michael," he cautioned. His collection went on the sofa table.

Izzy found herself staring in disbelief once again.

He returned, empty-handed. "Hi. I'm Joe."

"You're seelie!" she blurted out before she could stop herself. He clearly was, but he _also_ wore runes. Seelie couldn't be marked with runes!

Joe looked a little embarrassed. "Leprechaun," he said. "But I'd really rather you called me Joe."

"Joe's out of bounds," someone behind Izzy remarked, apparently misinterpreting her reaction. She spoke loudly enough that the entire room had probably heard. "He's Auntie Gwen's leprechaun."

"Gwen's husband, you were going to say," Joe corrected with what had to be the most self-satisfied grin Izzy had ever seen on a leprechaun.

Izzy looked around. "Isn't he—"

"A little tall for a leprechaun?" Joe asked, not giving her time to finish the sentence.

"—a bit too young for Gwen," Izzy finished decisively, now speaking in Joe's direction again.

Allie was trying and failing to maintain a straight face. "He's wearing a glamor," she noted. "Auntie Gwen likes to have her vanity stroked a bit."

Izzy's eyes were still fixed on Joe, who shrugged. "Leprechaun…" he said as if that explained everything.

"He used to look seventeen," Charlie threw in. "That led to all kinds of problems, so she agreed he could age up a bit."

Izzy felt the beginnings of a headache build behind her temples. Unfortunately, she was sure that it had absolutely nothing to do with the aftereffects of poison.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun had set a while ago, but Izzy stood by the large window, looking out onto the lamplit street. Dinner had been a blur. Conversation had ranged from "Have you finished your homework" to basketball results, to scheduling time for the premiere of some theater play Izzy had never heard of, before seguing seamlessly into the matter of her and her lost family.

That was at some point after Graham got up from the table to check if "the new pie had arrived yet", which he apparently expected to be delivered into the fridge without anyone noticing, but a few minutes before someone rang the doorbell and politely delivered Melissa's cell phone, which was apparently no reason for surprise, or concern. In fact, she glanced at the time and muttered something about having hoped it'd stay out for another few hours.

The mundanes at the table seemed perfectly at ease with conversation of charms and spells, even contributing some input of their own. If it wasn't very helpful, then that made it no different from anything else anyone said.

Izzy's eyes kept wandering to where the recently returned phone was sitting on the table next to Mel's plate.

"I could try calling Alec's phone," she threw in when there was a moment's silence – a rare occurrence, given the number of people at the table. "I don't expect he has it any more than I have mine, but I would have at least tried."

Melissa pushed her phone across the table at her without a word.

Izzy dialed, and got voicemail. She tried Jace, then Clary, both to the same effect. She didn't know Magnus' number by heart.

She should have contacted the institute. They needed to know what had happened. They needed to know she was safe. She should have done it first thing after realizing what had happened. She'd punched in most of the number when she reconsidered.

They wouldn't have needed so many people if they hadn't expected a group of well-trained fighters to show up. They'd been prepared for the four of them. Of course it wasn't unlikely that if anyone stumbled into a place like that, they wouldn't be alone. Nevertheless doubt kept gnawing on her mind. First Magnus, then them? There were too many coincidences there.

If there was no one in the institute involved in this not calling would make people worry about her absence for a little longer – but they'd have to keep on worrying about the other three anyway. If someone _was_ involved, calling to say she had escaped could put the others in some serious danger.

Of course, not calling also meant that no one would go and check out the location they'd been captured at, and possibly let a trail go cold.

She glanced at the date on the phone and suddenly felt a chill. It had been three days. They must have given them food and something to drink at that place they'd been kept in, while they were not quite awake enough to remember it. She'd been thirsty and hungry when she woke up, but not three days' worth of hungry. Certainly not three days' worth of thirsty.

She pushed the phone back in Melissa's direction. Any trails there might have been would long be gone by now.

Izzy's offer to help clean up after the meal had been declined with a smile. She didn't know where things went, they had said.

She had to admit that their cleaning up was as well-choreographed as the cooking had been.

The apartment emptied after dinner, people leaving for their own homes in small groups. Izzy was perplexed to find that very nearly everyone wanted to give her a parting hug and some reassurance that whatever was going on, they'd get to the bottom of it – and find her people either there or on the way.

Jack left by himself, muttering something about wanting to go take a flight.

Three of the old women they called their aunties walked out together, discussing the designs used in the circle that had concealed Izzy. They didn't offer hugs, and Izzy was glad of it. She didn't think that would have felt safe.

Gwen remained, but it wasn't long before she grabbed a few things out of a kitchen cupboard and announced she was going to top up her potions cabinet just in case they needed some more of the kind they'd used that day. Joe joined her, but _he_ did stop by Izzy on the way out.

Charlie turned on the TV, put in a DVD and settled on the couch to watch something that looked like Simon might have enjoyed it. It had swords, and dragons, questionable magic and odd zombie-like creatures living in eternal ice. Izzy gave up trying to make sense of it after a short while.

The two mundanes stayed. Michael helped bring Allie and Graham's older set of twins to bed, while Brian joined Charlie.

Izzy wandered over to the window.

They were in Canada, they had told her. Calgary. There wasn't even an institute in Calgary.

There should have been. The place was large enough to warrant one. Was that why they'd chosen the place – whoever "they" were?

Allie returned from checking on the younger twins and pushed aside chairs randomly left in the room to clear a large rug before unrolling what looked like an oversized city plan from where Izzy stood. She had changed into flannel pajamas and was barefoot. A bold move, Izzy thought, thinking of the haul Joe had brought out just from under the table.

The older woman grabbed a number of cushions off of the sofa and tossed them on the hardwood floor next to the rug. Graham came walking out of one of the rooms leading off of the large open space they were in and handed her a folded quilt.

Noticing that Izzy was watching her, Allie gave her a smile across the room.

"Might as well be comfortable while I work," she said, settling down among the pillows and wrapping herself in the quilt.

"What are you going to do?"

Allie indicated the map. "I'm going to go over this city with a fine-toothed comb," she said, as if it were the most normal thing to do. "If your family's anywhere within the boundaries of Calgary, I will find them. Brian!"

Without turning from the TV, Brian leaned forward, snatched a marker pen off the table and tossed it in Allie's direction.

Izzy forcefully pushed away the question of what would happen if they _weren't_ within the city's boundaries.

Graham came over, reaching out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. For a man who really wasn't very tall, he had one hell of a presence.

_October 22 nd, 2016, morning_

They had promised to wake her if Allie found anything when she'd been too exhausted to stay up any longer, but it was the sun that pulled Izzy from her sleep, bright rays falling through the window.

She could hear sounds from outside her door, people moving around the apartment, talking, laughing.

For a moment, it threatened to overwhelm her. Her brothers, Clary and Magnus were missing, she still wasn't sure she dared contact home, and these people were just carrying on with their lives. Mentally calling herself to order, she threw back the blanket and got out of bed. She'd have to find a way to keep busy, preferably something that would help find everyone.

Fresh, folded clothes were waiting on a chair, topped by a note that read "Try these" in bold, self-confident letters that seemed to dare the offered garments to not fit.

They still weren't what Izzy would have chosen for herself, but they were a good step up from wearing something that kept trying to wriggle off of her because it was made for someone clearly wider in the bust and hips than she was.

So, dressed in blue jeans and a red sweater that had the name of some band or team she'd never heard of printed across the front, supplemented by a pair of ridiculously flat-soled shoes she'd found by the door and that turned out to be an almost-perfect fit – though also not her style –, Izzy went to see what everyone else was doing.

She stopped short upon entering the living room. Allie was sitting on the floor with the faraway look of someone in deep meditation, just where she'd been when Izzy had gone to bed the last night. About a quarter of the squares on the map were crossed out.

Brian was fiddling with the coffee maker while Charlie and Michael were busy scrambling eggs and producing yet more pancakes. Pancakes seemed to be a staple food it this family. Watching for a moment, Izzy thought that she could see why: It was easy to pour the batter in whatever shapes were desired.

Graham sat at the table, trying hard to get either Evan or Edward to eat his porridge without spreading it halfway across the room. The other twin wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Has she been at that all night?" Izzy asked, indicating Allie with a nod of her head, as she slid into a chair across from Graham. There she'd just been thinking about how these people just got on with their lives, and now—

One corner of Graham's mouth twitched upwards. Her surprise seemed to amuse him. "She got up a few times to feed the boys. Arthur and Adam, I mean."

"Doesn't she get—" Izzy glanced back over at Allie before the last word left her mouth, and she spotted a neat row of new runes shining on her forehead, giving stamina, alertness and removing fatigue. No. She wasn't going to get exhausted with those freshly on her body. Not if they actually worked the way runes did. "Oh."

"Jack went to get some food from the store," Charlie said when she came over a moment later, setting down a stack of plates on the table. "We figured you might prefer food that's not…" she wriggled her fingers in a way that suggested drawing a rune.

Izzy thought that she really did, but smiled and shrugged anyway. "I can eat whatever you eat." It seemed to have been the right thing to say. Everyone relaxed just a fraction. "Also – thank you for the clothes."

"Gen brought those over," Charlie said. "She's much closer to you in shape than any of us are, so we were hoping they'd work."

Izzy had no idea who Gen was. "If you point her out to me at some point, I'll thank her directly," she promised, just as the door to the apartment opened to admit Jack, carrying a bag of groceries in one hand and the second twin on his shoulders.

Jack deposited the protesting twin on Graham's free side and started unpacking, swiftly distributing pastry on two plates. He'd either clearly overestimated the amounts Izzy could eat, or planned to bring food for everyone. She chose to believe the latter.

A few more minutes of cutting bread, toasting toast and frying bacon later, everyone had settled around the table. Allie crossed off another square, unfolded herself from the floor and came to sit on Graham's side of the table, expertly taking over the twin closest to her. Catching Izzy's eye, she shook her head slightly. "Nothing yet."

*

Gwen and Joe walked through the door the moment the first cup of coffee was poured. Two previously empty seats complete with plates and cups in front of them suggested that they'd been expected.

"I didn't see anything on my flyover last night," Jack announced, buttering a slice of toast. "Talked to a couple of people, and no one seems to have noticed anything, other than the park being weird. But the park's been weird for a few years, so no one thought anything of it."

A chuckle ran around the table. Izzy hazarded a silent guess at who was at fault for the park being 'weird'.

"I met a very helpful pixie," Jack continued, the eye-roll accompanying the statement suggesting exactly how helpful the pixie had been. "Unless anyone needs to find a 'master sweetheart'," he sketched quotation marks into the air, "I don't think that's a road worth pursuing."

Izzy frowned at him. "A what?"

Jack laughed, a wisp of smoke rising from his nostrils. "Could be anything," he said. "Pixie packs are territorial, their territories aren't terribly big, and as news travels from pack to pack, information becomes a bit… faulty."

Joe made a sound that definitely wasn't human. Then again, neither was Joe.

"I'll try catching one of the Courts after breakfast," Jack announced. "Preferably Elessar or Arwen, but I'll take whoever shows up at the Silvan first. Someone must have helped whoever did that circle come in without Allie noticing, and unless we find any more evidence of the opposite, my money's on one of the Court."

"Elessar or Arwen? Who?" At least one of the names seemed to come from a story Simon liked. The other tickled a memory that went in the same direction.

"Our family has never dealt with the Fey," Gwen said at the same time, though the weariness in her voice suggested that she didn't really expect to be heeded.

Her husband spread his hands in an exasperated gesture. "So what am I?"

"Yeah," Charlie said, leaning closer to Jack. "That was before part of this family _was_ Fey." She turned towards Izzy. "They're not their real names, and I hear they chose them on purpose. They're Court… elves, if you like?"

A memory of Meliorn intruded unbidden into Izzy's mind. She pushed it away. She didn't need another distraction.

"Fine," Allie said. "Gwen, can you and Joe take the boys for the morning? Charlie, the store?"

"But Joe's your employee," Charlie put up a token protest. "Shouldn't _he_ take the store?"

"Joe had the store until midnight," Allie shot back as if that explained everything. "Friday."

"Oh, fine," Charlie relented. She turned to Izzy. "Fancy minding the store with me? Unless you'd rather help with the babysitting or spend the day in front of the TV."

"I'd rather _do_ something," Izzy said. "I feel terrible, sitting around and just waiting."

"Store," Charlie said. "If anyone interesting walks in, we can try to interrogate them, and if no one walks in, we can at least plot. Give me a second – I'll just grab an instrument."

*

Izzy didn't have to ask what Charlie needed a musical instrument for if she was supposed to mind a store. The woman was a Bard and probably felt as naked without something to make music on as Izzy did without any weapons on her body.

She paused on the landing outside of the apartment, letting her gaze wander over the collection of runes that graced the doors, the lock and the walls around them. They were all of the same not-quite-there quality as the ones these people had on their bodies, and she realized with a bit of a shock that the apartment was as well-warded as the Institute at home. Either these people had some enemies of their own, or they were a bit paranoid about keeping out intruders. There were some sigils that Izzy had never seen, and some others that looked like blends of ones she knew.

Charlie was already halfway down the flight of stairs, though, and she hurried to catch up.

She'd planned to ask her about the wards, but was distracted by the huge mirror that decorated the downstairs hallway. Set in an ornate, expensive-looking frame, it threw back their reflections at them – except they weren’t exactly _right_. Izzy reflexively glanced down her front to reassure herself that she was fully dressed, because her reflection definitely was not.

"Don't mind the mirror," Charlie said. "It's programmed with a juvenile sense of humor. It'll let you keep your clothes once you stop paying attention to it."

"Huh." Izzy had heard of magical mirrors, but she'd never actually looked into one. She studied their reflections. Charlie's was indeed dressed, her thin frame clad all in denim, a guitar ready to play and looking more aggressive than any guitar had any purpose looking. Charlie's hair was dark blonde like that of most of the other family members, which was quite a contrast to yesterday's green or today's half scarlet and half snowy white look.

"Nice touch," Charlie said, studying Mirror-Izzy. "I guess the mirror caught on to the entire nephilim thing."

"So what it shows has actual meaning?" Izzy scrutinized the pair of huge, glossy, black-feathered wings that rose over her mirror-image's shoulders. Had they been real, they would have at least brushed the ceiling.

Charlie came closer, and Mirror-Izzy angled a wing for her scrutiny. "Sometimes," she admitted. "Mostly it just likes to mess with us. It does enjoy a bit of symbolism here and there, though."

Mirror-Izzy had apparently had enough of the inspection. She beat her wings once and rose out of the reflection.

"The hair looks good on you," Izzy said, smiling at Mirror-Charlie. "What's with yours anyway? Why did you dye it like _that_ overnight?"

"Oh." Charlie turned away from the mirror and steered towards a door that led off of the short hallway. "I think that's because I got too annoyed that they changed Jaqen's hair from the books last night."

"You think?" This door was also warded, though in a more general and less fortress-like manner. It led into a room dominated by the controlled chaos that was typical for junk shops – or, for that matter, magic supply and artifact stores. Izzy had more experience with the latter, though a remarkable number of them were disguised as the former.

Charlie laughed as she quickly crossed the room to the front door, flipped the sign and turned the key. "It's not like it always asks my permission to change."

Izzy blinked. "Your hair changes color on its own?"

The Bard put her guitar case behind the counter and fished a yoyo out of a box. "I fear it's gotten into habits," she sighed. Reaching up, she brushed the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the toy through her hair, leaving behind a shade of teal so bright it almost hurt Izzy's eyes.

"Can you teach me that trick?"

Charlie reached out, grasping a thin strand of Izzy's hair close to the scalp and gently pulling her fingers along its length. She repeated the procedure once.

"Well, your hair's susceptible to suggestion," she said, taking in her work. "So yeah, I might. We can do that once we've got your family back. Right now, I'd rather not be distracted."

That was a good point, and one that Izzy agreed with wholeheartedly. Curious to see what Charlie had done, though, she reached for her hair, bringing those two strands where she could look at them. It hadn't felt like anything was happening, but Charlie's touch had left two colored strands in Izzy's hair: one a bold blue, the other a sparkling gold.

As Charlie started playing with her yoyo, Izzy ambled through the store, looking at the contents of the shelves. It was as she had suspected – her Sight showed her a multitude of glamored objects mixed in with the actual junk. Since Charlie didn't hold her back, she started browsing the goods.

"You know," she said over her shoulder, "I expected you to play your guitar, not a yoyo."

"Not that one," Charlie returned, wincing as she hit herself with the wooden device. "That's not for casual playing. I just wanted to have it close in case we need to leave in a hurry."

"I'd feel better if I had some weapons in case we need to leave in a hurry," Izzy pointed out. There were some swords in the store, but they were ornate rather than functional, badly balanced and cheaply made – something to display on a wall, never intended for combat.

Charlie mulled that over for a moment, before tossing a key ring to Izzy. "Go to the other end of the hallway, out into the yard, and let yourself into the garage," she said. "There's a door at the back. Don't touch Graham's penis extension. Pick whatever else you need."

"Graham's what?" The things that came unbidden to Izzy's mind had nothing to do with swords.

"His rifle. Make sure to lock the door on the way back."

*

Following Charlie's directions brought Izzy to a small room that had started its life as a kind of tool shed.

She flipped the light switch and stared. Before her, neatly ordered and placed on hooks on the walls or arranged for easy access on flat surfaces, lay the contents of a well-equipped weapons' room. Passing by the rifle secured behind an extra lock, she picked up a blade that wasn't quite long enough to be called a sword, but longer than an average dagger. It rested well in her hand, in spite of the missing inches, and she held on to it while she looked through everything else, taking care not to leave a mess behind.

In addition to the sword, she chose a wrist sheath with a flat knife that she strapped on. It wasn't quite concealed under the sleeve of her sweater, and she could only hope she wasn't going to tear the fabric if she actually had to get at the weapon, but she felt safer with a backup. A short dagger, heavily marked with insubstantial runes, completed her equipment.

Remembering Charlie's words, she checked twice to make sure the door was locked behind her, and returned, feeling much better for the familiar weight on her body, even if the weapons weren't seraph blades.

*

"What does Graham _do?_ " she asked Charlie as soon as she returned to the store. "Is he some kind of local shadowhunter equivalent?"

"Nah." Charlie was frowning at a mess of tangled string. "He runs a newspaper."

Izzy couldn't suppress an incredulous stare, which amused Charlie to no end.

"He spent thirteen years working as a sorcerer's assassin," she clarified around a grin. "Dispatching of anything that might have attacked his master, which apparently was quite a lot."

"And then he decided to become a reporter?"

"Journalist," Charlie corrected. "And no, he actually was a journalist before. The newspaper used to belong to the sorcerer. Now it's his, because the sorcerer is dead. It's the kind of newspaper that reports on yetis and chupacabras and UFO sightings, and I'm sure he's busy reviewing all the reports from the last few days right now that he previously discarded as not interesting enough – just in case someone saw anything that'll give us a lead and didn't know quite what it is they saw."

That was convenient.

"Now, my sisters," Charlie continued. " _They_ like to go demon hunting. And vampire hunting. And monster-hunting in general. It's not their day job either, but they've dispatched a few."

Izzy was about to ask more questions when the door from the hallway was pushed open and Joe burst in. "I'm taking over here," he announced. "Allie found something. Get the pickup ready. Graham will be down in a moment."

Charlie didn't even seem surprised. She dropped the tangled yoyo, ignored Joe's annoyed "Are you going to buy that now that you broke it?", grabbed her guitar case and waved Izzy out the door ahead of her.

*

The pickup was covered in more runes than any vehicle had a right to be. Izzy made a point of not looking at the assortment of objects strewn in the car.

She had just settled in her seat when the door was pulled open and Graham shoved his rifle inside ahead of himself. "Fort Calgary," he said in Charlie's direction. "Where Allie closed that Gate way back."

Charlie apparently knew where that was, since the car lurched into motion, pulling out onto the street at a speed that Izzy was reasonably sure was illegal even in Canada.

With the question of where they needed to go answered, Graham turned towards Izzy. "Did you help yourself to some of my weapons?"

"Charlie gave me the keys," Izzy said, trying not to sound defensive. "I thought it'd be better if everyone who knew how to use them was armed just in case… And I didn't touch your pe—rifle."

Graham gave a short, barking laugh. "If I'd had the least doubt that it was Charlie who sent you into the arsenal, the fact that you were just going to say 'penis substitute' would have been all the proof I'd've needed."

"She didn't say penis substitute." Izzy felt a blush creep over her face.

"But something essentially to the same effect," Graham noted drily. "It was good thinking. We can't rely on not meeting anything unexpected there just because there wasn't anyone or anything around when David found you."

The streets were miraculously clear of traffic, the lights turning green where they approached. It happened too often to be coincidence.

"Is that a rune clearing the way for us?" Izzy hazarded a guess. She didn't know any runes that did that, but all those marks she had never seen before had to do something.

"Nah," Charlie said, taking a turn that made Izzy grab on to her seat. Had the wheels on her side just left the ground for a moment? "That's Allie."

Deciding that she preferred Charlie to keep her attention on the street, given the speed at which they were going, Izzy refrained from asking how.

*

They pulled into the parking lot, almost at the same time as another car – a dark SUV with decals that looked like the car was meant as a marketing gag for a horror movie.

Two young women jumped out, the Gale family resemblance impossible to miss. So was their resemblance to each other. With their identical haircuts and identical clothing, the weapons they had were the only way to tell them apart: One of them was holding on to a crossbow, the other brandished a staff tipped with a curved blade.

Izzy scowled. They were going for flashy, not competent, and she would have wagered anything that neither of them had ever had a single lesson of combat training.

"My sisters, Ashley and Carrie," Charlie introduced them quickly. "And this is Izzy, our guest."

"The professional vampire hunter!" The crossbow-wielding twin said.

"Hi, colleague!" the other one added.

Izzy's scowl deepened. "We're not strictly speaking vampire hunters," she said darkly, drawing her sword and automatically falling into a ready stance. Graham held his rifle comfortably, but only a fool would have missed the fact that he was alert and ready to spring into action any moment. The man was a professional. Izzy had no problem at all seeing the assassin under the journalist's veneer now.

Charlie had taken out her guitar and adjusted the strap. The instrument was the same one the mirror had shown them, and a feel of barely contained power – and _danger_ – emanated from it. No wonder Charlie had said that wasn't an instrument meant for casual playing. To Izzy's surprise, it was unmarked.

"We've been thinking," the twin with the staff said, oblivious to Izzy's displeased look, "that maybe you could show us some moves when we're done here."

Unsure of how to respond to that, Izzy was glad for a distraction, even if it came in the form of the sound of sheets flapping in the wind. She looked up to see a large shape in the sky, coming rapidly closer – and growing larger and larger. Nothing that big ought to be that high up unless it ran on kerosene and flew on a schedule.

None of the others seemed in the least perplexed by the fact that a gigantic golden dragon was heading straight towards them.

When it was almost on top of them, the dragon stooped.

Already close enough for Izzy to see details of its scales, it burst into flames. It hit the ground as a man. Expertly catching the impact by dropping into a crouch, Jack elegantly sprang back to his feet.

"Is that all of us?" he asked, looking back and forth between them.

Graham nodded. "Let's go."

Still processing what she'd just witnessed, Izzy fell into step with them. Of course she remembered about Jack being half dragon, or his announcement to take a flight. She hadn't imagined him that magnificent, though – or, for that matter, thought that he would literally be turning into a dragon.

Jack, the only one of them who wasn't armed – Izzy wondered if he was able to breathe actual fire – sniffed the air. "There," he said, pointing. "I've got a scent."

In spite of being a tourist location, the area was strangely deserted. Whether that was also Allie's doing, Izzy couldn't say. She was rather sure, though, that the sudden distinct feeling of "don't go there" that hit her wasn't coming from Ally. She barreled through it, suddenly certain that they had come to precisely the right place. Glancing at the others' faces, she could see the effect hit all of them, but to their credit, none of them faltered. Even Charlie's sisters had now taken a posture that suggested that, though surely lacking formal training, they weren't complete amateurs. If they were willing to learn, maybe she really should teach them a little.

Later.

Jack stopped them with a raised hand, his other one indicating a stretch of empty grass by the side of the path they'd been following.

There wasn't anything there.

Izzy blinked, focusing and re-focusing her eyes and her mind.

For a split second, she saw the shimmer of a glamor. Then she was through, an intricate design scorched into the grass and marked in the earth beneath laid out before her, runes matching the ones on David's photograph, and a still form tied down at the center.

"Alec!"

Charlie's hand on her arm kept Izzy from running to her brother's aid.

"A moment," the Bard cautioned. "Don't disturb the scene yet."

Graham had shouldered his rifle and taken out his phone, snapping pictures. Of course – anything that might give them a clue later… still, that was her big brother laid out stark naked on the ground. It took an exercise of sheer willpower to keep Izzy from shaking Charlie off and running in anyway. At least his chest rose and fell evenly, a clear indication that he was alive.

She forced a nod. "Got it."

Withdrawing her hand, Charlie let it hover over the strings of her guitar, ready to strike a note any moment. Jack and the twins were clearly securing the perimeter, keeping an eye out for whatever – or whoever – might notice them disturbing this site. Izzy drew her dagger and, one blade in each hand, took position between Bard and dragon.

"Done," Graham announced after what felt like an eternity.

Charlie let her hand fall, playing a chord that sounded so discordant that Izzy would have clamped her hands over her ears, had they been free.

If it felt almost too much for her eardrums to bear, it clearly was more than the runes on the ground could withstand. When the last of the noise – there was no way that could be called music – faded, Alec, still tied down by wrists and ankles, lay at the center of a circular patch of burnt earth that surely would make for a good story in Graham's newspaper one of the next days.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Knowing what she was looking for already, Charlie found the punctures at the base of Alec's neck and sketched the antidote charm there. It gave a barely audible hiss, nothing by comparison to how the one Allie had put on Izzy had sizzled. Predictably, Alec didn't react.

They returned to the apartment with him, while Jack launched himself into the air again to go back to his collection-gathering mission.

Graham carried Alec upstairs, where he gently deposited the unresponsive man on the sofa and covered him with a soft wool blanket.

*

Allie was back on the floor with her map. The kitchen looked almost deserted with only a single person in it. More pancakes. Of course.

The mundanes were nowhere to be seen, and neither were Gwen or the children, but a dark brown, glass-stoppered bottle stood on the table, neatly labeled "Antidote, gen.", waiting to be used along with a pitcher of water and a glass. A guitar leaned against the other sofa.

Izzy picked up the potion bottle and turned it in her hands.

"Mix it half-half with the water," Charlie said, coming from the hall that led to the other rooms. Since her guitar case was no longer with her, it stood to reason that she'd gone to put away her instrument. How dangerous was that thing?

Not wanting to think any more about the particulars of that, Izzy put down the bottle and took the pitcher, filling the glass a little less than half-way. "I hope this doesn't count as cooking," Izzy said. "Alec hates my cooking."

Charlie laughed. "I think it's more like chemistry," she offered. "Does he have reason to?"

Adding potion to the water and gently swirling the glass to mix its contents, Izzy joined in the older woman's amusement "Hell yeah. I can't cook anything edible to save my life. But don't tell him I admitted to that."

"Join the club." Charlie settled in the armchair, stretching out to fish for her guitar and check its tuning.

The woman baking pancakes brought over a plate. "Actually," she said, "Charlie's banned from the kitchen. Her cooking isn't bad, it's absolutely terror-inducing. And believe me – I mean that quite literally."

"What Katie said," Charlie admitted. "Or almost so. They let me _bake_ the pancakes, but not mix the batter. Probably better for everyone involved, except for the pancakes."

"Why?" Katie asked. "You think pancakes prefer being reduced to ashes with dragonfire for the sake of everyone's safety to being eaten?"

Charlie was playing a few notes, a repetitive tune that could easily morph into very nearly any kind of music. It was as if she were taking a run-up so she could pick up speed – or musical energy – for what she was about to do. "I don't think he's under as far as you were, Izzy. I can hear his song come through quite nicely."

"He's had some more time to let the effects wear off," Graham pointed out.

"Okay." Izzy inhaled deeply. "Let's do this."

Graham helped her raise Alec up a little to make it easier for him to swallow. His body seemed limp like a ragdoll.

It was worse than the time he had lost himself in trying to find Jace through their _parabatai_ bond. That time, while he had been deeply unconscious, he'd still been there. He'd reacted to touch sometimes, and he'd seemed to be dreaming.

Hoping that she wasn't about to drown him, Izzy held the glass to her brother's lips and tipped it a little, letting some of the liquid dribble into his mouth.

Alec swallowed reflexively.

It took a while to get the diluted potion down Alec's throat completely. Once done, Graham gently lowered him back onto the sofa.

Izzy put the glass on the table and sat down at the edge of the couch, reaching for Alec's hand. How long did the potion need to take effect? She glanced at the pancakes on the table and gave an incredulous laugh. "Seriously? I get a truth spell and _he_ gets Good Fortune?"

"No," Graham said, picking up the top-most one of the pancakes, not bothering to get a plate or a fork. "These are for us, not for him. He'll get fresh ones when he comes around."

*

The potion took about fifteen minutes to take effect, and it was a very long fifteen minutes for Alec. He'd woken to a completely unresponsive body and a feeling of thirst that intensified as time passed. He had no trouble hearing, and he could see the sun come up through his closed lids. From what clues he got, he assumed he was in a public place – once daylight had come, people were walking past not far from him, talking, chatting in several languages. No one paid him any heed, which suggested that he was concealed somewhere or under a glamor. He was pretty sure that a naked man tied spread-eagled on the ground would have been much harder to ignore, had he been visible. A stone was digging painfully into his hip.

He mentally went through all that had happened, recalling, again and again, the sequence of events from the moment they had received their orders to the one when he had seen Magnus, looking like he'd been thrown onto that sofa with some force, red dripping from the fingers of a hand that hung over the edge so that it almost touched the ground…

The thing that wouldn't leave his mind, though, had come after that. When they were fencing, fighting for their lives – or so it had felt – and his attacker's sleeve had slipped. It might have been a trick, played by the light and his already-dazed mind after inhaling too much of the fumes released in that room, but he could have sworn that the man had had an enkeli rune on his forearm.

Logic told him it couldn't be. Another shadowhunter, luring them there, attacking them? The principle should have felt more unlikely than it did, but at least some facts spoke against it. Even if they were some of the former mundanes Valentine had turned into shadowhunters and marked, they would have inhaled the same fumes. They would have been affected by them.

Doubt remained, though, gnawing on him. He didn't think it was just a matter of hurt feelings because he'd been relieved of command of the institute, replaced, as they said, by someone with more experience.

Someone with less of a connection to the Downworld, he would have wagered.

Thinking of Magnus was like stabbing a blazing dagger through his heart. He had to be alright. He hadn't had the time to examine him. Surely there was a way that things would have looked worse than they were…

There were other memories, disjointed bits and pieces. He wasn't sure which were real and what he had dreamed in his drugged sleep. Someone laughing. Someone telling someone else to inform the Clave that the targets had been secured. That must have been a nightmare made up by his imagination.

And yet, he couldn't let go of it.

He'd spent time trying to move, to wrestle his body under control. To make a sound. To open his eyes at least, but all conscious control of his body seemed to have been blocked. Everything that didn't need a deliberate impulse from him still worked. He was breathing, but incapable of holding his breath.

Then the sounds of people moving around him had suddenly stopped, as if the path that must lead by the place had suddenly been blocked by something. He could still feel the sunlight, see by the red color on the insides of his eyelids that he was facing right up into the sunlit sky, so it couldn't be that the day had passed and this was the usual calm that came with nightfall.

He renewed his efforts to get free. They were just as unsuccessful as they had been before. Whatever spell was holding him: it was stronger than he was.

After what felt like hours, he heard footsteps again. One set sounded oddly familiar, like his sister but not…

It was clearly Izzy's voice that cried out his name, though. An unfamiliar voice, holding her back. Izzy consenting.

Someone moved around closer to him, doing something Alec had no way of figuring out.

Even knowing it was useless, he tried to move again, to throw himself against the bonds he felt around ankles and wrists and at intervals up his arms and legs.

"Done," a male voice announced, followed almost instantly by a sound that made Alec wish he could have clamped his hands over his ears.

Then his ties were taken off. They weren't the source of the spell, since it changed nothing about his immobility.

Two fingers on his jaw turned his head to one side, then the other. "There."

A cool touch on the side of his neck, almost as if a cube of ice had been placed on his skin.

Someone scooped him up.

"Wow." That was Izzy again. He felt immense gratitude that she, at least, appeared to be safe, though it did nothing to alleviate his fear for Magnus, or Jace – or Clary.

A chuckle, borne on a burst of air almost unpleasantly hot. "I'm stronger than I look."

He was loaded into what soon turned out to be a car. Something was draped over his body. He was grateful for that. Suddenly he was too acutely aware of the fact that he'd been naked all this time.

Izzy sat with him, cradling his head in her lap and keeping a hand on his shoulder as if to reassure him. She was talking to him, promising he'd be alright soon. He wanted to respond so badly…

The car stopped again. Hands pulled on him, unloading him, lifting him up. He was carried up a flight of stairs and put down on a soft surface. The blanket from the car was replaced by a softer one.

He could hear talk – easy, relaxed banter between Izzy and some other women. They didn't seem particularly concerned for his safety.

"…don't tell him I admitted to that."

Neither did they realize he was actually awake in there.

Strong hands propped him up a little. A fighter's hands. Alec could feel the calluses on his bare skin.

There was Izzy again, holding a glass to his lips.

His body, parched from lack of fluid intake for who knew how long, swallowed without his help.

When the glass was empty, he wanted more. At that moment, he felt he could have killed for another glass of water.

None came. The people around him settled down to wait, forming a round of entertaining tales and – it seemed – pancakes.

Anger bubbled up in Alec. He was lying here, unable to do anything, three of them were missing – he still couldn't feel his _parabatai_ bond to Jace at all – and these people had nothing better to do than to sit down and have pancakes with intermittent music?

He forced the emotion under control. He had to trust Izzy. She wouldn't be participating in this so calmly if there wasn't a good reason for it.

He tried again to move, and this time he could feel his fingers twitch in response

That small breakthrough brought the spell that held him down in an avalanche. The tip of his tongue darted over dry lips as he blinked, extracted one arm from under the blanket and slid the other from where Izzy had placed it across his chest to push himself into a sitting position.

A wave of dizziness hit him, with dark spots dancing before his eyes.

When they cleared, he found himself looking into four expectant faces. One of them was his sister's. The other three he had never seen before.

He was in what looked like a mundane living room, complete with a TV across from the sofa he was on.

"What's going on here?" he demanded of no one in particular. His voice was rough and hoarse, his throat so dry it hurt.

There was a pitcher of clear water on the table, along with some glasses. Disregarding any principles of politeness towards his hosts, he reached for it. He needed some fluids in him, and if they took offence they'd just have to take care of that afterwards.

They, however, seemed to have realized his predicament. The single other male around the table snatched up the pitcher with one hand while shoving his laptop to the edge of the table farthest from the water with his other. He poured and pushed the glass into Alec's hand.

If he'd resented the fact that the man had only filled his glass half-way, Alec realized the wisdom of that as soon as he saw just how shaky his own hand was.

He gulped the water down and held the glass out again for a refill.

"Slow down." The man's voice had a slightly hoarse, but not unpleasant, quality to it. "You'll make yourself sick if you drink too much too quickly." He poured.

Alec gave him a glare. He knew that.

He forced himself to take smaller sips this time.

Izzy pulled him into a hug that was almost painful as soon as he put down the glass. He returned it, savoring the comfort his sister's presence was, even though it didn't do much to offset the acute feeling of loss that permeated him.

"What is going on here?" He asked again once she released him.

"Wish that we knew," Izzy said. She had two colored strands in her hair, Alec noticed. Most of them were missing, but Izzy had found time to have her hair done? The thought made him wary.

One of the other women spoke up. She was holding a guitar and sporting hair a shade of teal that almost hurt Alec's eyes when he looked at her. "It appears that someone kidnapped you and your family and tried to use you as ingredients in some sort of ritual. Whatever and whoever it is, they're going to be majorly pissed off because we've ruined two of their focus points now." She smiled, but there was nothing reassuring about that smile. It was rather on the predatory side. "And we fully intend to destroy the other three as well."

"You know where they are?" Alec moved to rise from the couch and realized just in time that he was still naked under the blanket. "Then why are you here having pancakes instead of getting them?"

Izzy, closest to him, placed a restraining hand just below his shoulder. "We don't know where they are. We're looking."

"You're having pancakes," Alec said, unable to keep the accusation from his voice.

"Yes," his sister shot back. "And so should you, probably. We need all the information we can get to figure out what _is_ going on here, and the pancakes are going to help you remember details."

The pancakes would what? He stared at her.

"Izzy, I'm not in the mood for games! Magnus may be dead, Jace is gone, Clary is missing—I'm not going to sit around and have _pancakes_!"

"By 'gone', do you mean…?"

"I can't feel our bond." Wow. He hadn't meant that to sound so … plaintive.

"Don't be too concerned about that," another voice came from somewhere behind the sofa. Alec turned just in time to see another woman rise from a pillow nest on the floor. She crossed the distance to the group by the table with a few quick steps. Her face looked as if someone had sneezed glitter onto it. "I can't feel anything inside those pockets they kept you in. I just found yours because there was a stutter in the fabric of the city, like a bit was cut out and the edges sealed together, but not matching precisely. There's some good news in that – I'm able to go through the rest of the area faster now that I know what I'm looking for. Also, I suspect anyone standing in front of one of those pockets will see right through it to what's behind, never noticing there's a piece of ground missing. Anyone walking into it should be deflected and come out right on the other side, unless they have the skill of stepping through wards. So your people should be reasonably safe."

Unless they died of hunger or thirst, Alec thought. He didn't find that piece of information particularly reassuring. Then the implications of what else she had said hit him. He looked at Izzy, who stared back at him, several shades paler than she had been before. She'd clearly come to the same conclusion.

They knew of _one_ place that was warded in that way.

"I'll have those pancakes," Alec said, shoving away the feeling of 'this is ridiculous'. "This is urgent. Izzy, did you contact anyone?"

His sister shook her head. "I tried to call you, Jace, Clary… voicemail for everyone. I don't know Magnus' number without my phone. I thought about calling home, but I had a bad feeling."

"Don't call home. Not before we know what's going on here."

"Graham," said a voice from behind him.

Alec looked around again to the woman who'd come over last. She had fished a notepad from a shelf against the wall and tossed it at the man, who caught it in one hand and unsnapped the rubber bands that held it closed.

Looking at her, Alec realized that the glitter on her face wasn't random but resolved into a collection of runes, though of a quality he had never seen before. "What's with the—" he gestured.

She gave him with a lopsided smile. "Have you ever tried scrying through the night and the next day without some help?"

"No." He could see the marks were meant to keep her awake and alert, but why put them all over her face - and why the glitter? Those weren't marks made by a stele.

The teal-haired woman cleared her throat. "If Graham has his old-time journalist's gear all ready to take notes, maybe we can proceed to serving the pancakes and start on the information-gathering," she suggested. "Then Allie can go back to scrying and maybe we'll get somewhere with this."

A plate of pancakes was put before him, and the smell reminded him that he wasn't just parched, but also decidedly hungry. Maybe that's what they'd meant, that his brain needed fuel to recall things properly.

They hadn't, he realized when they asked him to relate his memory of events, and the words tumbled out of his mouth.

*

Graham looked down at several pages of notes in neat shorthand. "I'll integrate that into what we have from Izzy, and then we can see if anything makes more sense combined than it does separately," he announced. "In the meantime, if you have any questions of your own, this is the time to ask them."

"What's in the pancakes?" Alec blurted out.

"A truth spell," Izzy said.

"And a memory charm," Katie added. Alec had figured out which of the names he had heard went with which woman in the meantime.

"You bake magic? How long does the effect hold up?"

Katie shrugged. "Sure. Can you think of a more convenient way to get a charm into people? Or several? And really, it depends. Given how much we've used the ones you ate, I wouldn't give it any more than another few questions."

"Alec," Izzy said, apparently aiming to use one of those remaining questions. "Do you really think some of our own people are behind this?"

"I don't know what to think." He ran a hand over his face, suddenly feeling tired. "Someone who may have been wearing a rune was at the cottage. Someone may have mentioned the Clave while I was mostly out of it. _Apparently someone kept each of us in our own convenient Little Idris…_ "

"Your what?" Charlie asked.

"Idris is our home country," Alec informed her. "It's located between Germany and France, right down there near Switzerland, and it's warded in the same manner that your friend described. To keep mundanes out, or from knowing that it even exists. It is—" the urge to respond to the question with all he could think of faded. He sighed. "The spell is used up, and I'm not having another pancake."

Katie giggled at that. "Your loss. We have Good Fortune, Clear Mind, and some general protections left."

"I'll have the Clear Mind," Izzy announced.

"I'd like to have some clothes," Alec threw in.

Charlie sized him up with a long look. "I'll get you some of Jack's," she offered, rising from the armchair. "I think you're about the same size."

"There's more," Izzy said.

She hadn't touched her pancake yet, so this must have been on her mind already. Alec leaned forward, listening.

"The runes all around you looked like they were made with a stele."

"A what?" Katie asked.

"A stele," Izzy repeated. "A device, about this long and this thick," she indicated with her fingers, "and we use it to put runes on ourselves and each other and on objects. Also to activate runes we have. It leaves these marks." She pointed. "It burns them in."

Katie shook her head. "Why would you do that? I mean, why mutilate yourself if you can just…" she dipped her finger in her water glass and drew a mark on the back of her hand. It left a faint, shining line on her skin.

"It doesn't work for us that way," Izzy said. "You may be able to use just anything from spit to pancake batter, but we need our steles."

Graham, listening with half an ear, unlocked his phone, pulled up the picture gallery and pushed the device at Alec so he could study the photographs.

Izzy was right. Those scorched runes looked very much like they had come from a stele. He recognized only some of them. The others must have been from among those runes that weren't accessible to the regular shadowhunter.

"When's the last time you tried?" Katie wanted to know, continuing her conversation with Izzy.

"I haven't," Izzy said. "Well, I probably did when I was a kid. All children play at being shadowhunters and draw runes in crayon and whatever…"

"Children haven't come into their powers yet." Charlie had returned. She tossed several items of clothing at Alec. "Have you ever tried as an adult?"

"No," Izzy admitted. "Why would I try something I know won't work?"

Graham groaned behind his laptop. "Izzy," he pointed out, "If you haven't tried it, isn't your 'I know it won't work' more of a 'because everyone says so'?"

Katie pushed her glass in the younger woman's direction. "Try," she said.

"Jace can _activate_ runes without a stele," Alec noted while he was wriggling into the track pants Charlie had brought under the blanket. "But it's one of his special angel blood powers."

"Try," Katie repeated. "Let's see what happens."

Rolling her eyes, Izzy dipped a finger into the water. Her thoughts were clearly written on her face. This was silly. "Which one?"

Charlie reached for Graham's notebook and ripped out a sheet of blank paper before he could protest. She put it on one of the empty plates and set it in front of Izzy. "Fire," she suggested. "There."

With a barely suppressed sigh, Izzy sketched the rune, only to snatch her hand back when blazing flames licked her fingers.

"Please don't set the house on fire," Graham said without looking up from his typing.

Izzy shook her head before blowing on stinging, reddened skin while she stared at flames that died while paper fell to ashes.

"Don't you have a charm for that?" Charlie asked.

Dipping her other hand in the water, Izzy drew an iratze across her fingers. The tenderness disappeared along with the discoloration.

"It doesn't burn," Izzy said wonderingly.

Katie got up from her seat. "Of course it doesn't. You just healed it. I'm going to start on lunch. We'll want more to eat than pancakes, and everyone else won't have eaten yet at all."

"No."Izzy caught and held Alec's eyes. "Not that. The charm. The charm doesn't burn. "

Alec, reminded by the mention of lunch that the Truth spell pancake he'd had had been far from enough for someone who had skipped several meals, traced the lines of his nourishment rune. A silver sheen sunk into the black lines. He was still hungry, but the edge was gone, the feeling easier to ignore.

"The runes are stronger," he noted.

Charlie laughed. "The charm would be stronger if you drew it in sweat or blood instead of water," she pointed out. "A bit more confidence wouldn't hurt either.

Alec glared at her. "I'm a bit new to this, you know," he said. "And my _parabatai_ is still gone, and so's my boyfriend. So's Clary." He added the last almost like an afterthought

"I know," Charlie said. "We're on it."

"How do you spell _parabatai_?" Graham asked. He was fiddling with a timeline. "The way you say it, or do you get creative?"

"Just the way you say it," Alec said, spelling it out to be safe. "It's a bond between two shadowhunters. It ties them together, makes them family – closer than family – they fight as one, and when one dies then part of the other dies as well." He pointed at the rune. "I… I could try to use our bond to track Jace. I don't know if a charm would work for that instead of a rune, but I could _try_."

"Absolutely NOT!" Izzy declared, her voice rising almost into a shout. "Last time you did that when he was somewhere you couldn't reach, you ended up comatose and nearly died, remember? We're not experimenting with that."

Alec held up his hands defensively. "It was just an idea." The blaze in his eyes said that it wasn't an idea he was going to give up on. He might delay if he had to, but if they didn't get anywhere with other methods, he was going to have to try.

He wouldn't let Jace die in one of those circles


	5. Chapter 5

_October 22 nd, 2016; shortly after noon_

"Wow," Alec said as he took in the runes on the wall outside the apartment. "What kind of intruders do these people expect?"

His sister shrugged. "I have no idea, but they clearly know what they're doing." She started down the stairs.

Catching up to her with a few quick steps, Alec caught her with a hand on her arm.

Izzy turned to face him.

"Do you trust these people, Iz?" he asked, lowering his voice to just above a whisper.

She nodded.

"We barely know them."

"They didn't have to bring me in," Izzy pointed out. "They didn't have to find a way to wake me up, or to find you. Allie has four kids. I'm sure she can think of better things to do with her time than sit on the floor and scry."

"But, Iz…" Alec reached out with one hand to prop himself against the wall behind her, leaning closer and speaking even more softly. "They put you under a truth spell. I mean," he continued quickly, "they also put _me_ under a truth spell, but I kind of consented."

She stared at him incredulously. "Alec, I was a stranger they'd just found under extremely weird circumstances. Don't you think our people would have done the same?"

"No!" It came out as a hiss.

"No," Izzy repeated, catching his eyes and holding them. "You know what? I think you're right. They wouldn't have." He was about to say something, but she raised a hand, forestalling him. "They might have just used an agony rune instead if they'd felt I wasn't telling them everything."

"But Izzy, we wouldn't—" Alec began.

"Damn right," she shot back, using the break he needed to decide what exactly they wouldn't do. " _We_ wouldn't. But we're not all there is to it. Alec," she kept her voice low, but the urgency in it was impossible to miss. "I saw the footage. I almost felt sorry for _Valentine_. No one should be tortured like that. No matter what."

Alec closed his eyes. The events that had followed had made it easy to push that away. He'd focused on Magnus, and then other things had happened, and they'd been reeling from incident to incident. "We needed to know what he knew. The Soul-Sword was missing. It was the only way." He didn't sound very convinced even to his own ears.

"Really?" Izzy gave a short, dry laugh as she pointed back towards the apartment. "They bake truth charms into _pancakes_ , Alec. Questionable eating habits aside, how hard could it have been to find _some_ warlock who has a truth spell to their name? Did she even try?"

"I don't know." He inhaled deeply, held his breath for a moment and let it out slowly. "Probably not. She wanted to hurt him." For what he had done to her son and his family. He didn't say that. He hadn't been sure that that excused anything in a long time.

"I'll take the pancakes any day, announced or not," Izzy said. She dove through under his arm and took another step down the stairs. "How can you even question whether we trust them? Graham just handed us the key to his weapons' room again so you can outfit yourself."

Alec had the good sense to look embarrassed. "Bad conscience, I guess," he admitted. "For seriously considering that our own people may be behind this."

"We'll get to the bottom of it," Izzy promised. "Once we have everyone back."

Something else came to Alec's mind. "Do they know what we are?"

Her grin could be heard clearly in her answer. "Oh yes. And they would even if I hadn’t told them."

"Why's that?"

"There's a mirror downstairs." Izzy's grin broadened and she jumped down the remaining steps. "Come have a look."

A moment later, Alec found himself looking into the face of his own, stark naked reflection. Not saying anything about proportions was made much easier by staring wordlessly at the pair of shiny black wings, too large to fit the frame entirely, rising up behind him. The feathers he could see were gold-tipped. Had they been real, they would have looked magnificent in sunlight.

Izzy was presented in the same way, but she seemed less concerned by it.

"Put some clothes on," Alec grumbled, because he had to say something, and he really wasn't sure what else he could say that wouldn't end up sounding entirely idiotic.

The mirror seemed in a gracious mood, shifting the image to present them in combat gear, smudges on their faces and rifles in their hands. A cartridge belt ran diagonally across Mirror-Alec's chest. A black bandana kept his hair out of his face. Izzy was similarly attired. The wings were still present on both of them.

"Right," Alec said. "Weapons. Which way?"

Izzy turned in the direction of the yard. "They didn't mention it had voice control."

*

Alec felt better for being armed, but there wasn't much for them to do but to wait for Allie to get through the rest of the map.

With nothing constructive to do, Alec and Izzy eventually wandered out into the yard. It was almost entirely enclosed by buildings, the only windows facing out onto it those belonging to the Gale family. They probably wouldn't have to worry much about concerned neighbors there.

Not wanting to risk her borrowed sweater, Izzy stripped to her bra. Alec slid out of Jack's t-shirt as well. The air felt cool on his bare skin, but he was sure he'd get warm quickly enough.

They faced off, each holding a dagger in one, a longer blade in the other hand.

Neither of them stood still for a moment as they circled, moving almost as if dancing, each studying the other intently, waiting for an opening that didn't come.

Alec moved in first, his dagger guarding, sword moving to strike at Izzy's neck. These blades weren't made for stabbing, but for cutting and slashing. He would have felt better with a seraph blade, but he'd use what he had.

Instead of trying to parry the strike, coming from Alec's superior height, Izzy let herself drop to evade the blade, rolled and surged back to her feet, stabbing her dagger quickly at her brother's side. Alec slapped the point aside with his own, deflecting the blade just far enough to make it go past him.

They were standing inside the reach of their swords now, unable to use them effectively.

Izzy's foot shot out, hooking her brother's leg and pulling his foot out from under him. Her weight already resting on her other leg, she hadn't needed to give her move away by shifting her balance.

Alec let himself fall, using the momentum to carry him backwards. Tucking in his head, he executed a perfect roll and met Izzy's sword with crossed blades while still on one knee.

Pushing himself off of the ground, he shoved her back to free his weapons at the same time.

She moved in again immediately, slashing and stabbing in quick succession.

He blocked the first and sidestepped the second.

Moving into another swing, he found his sword blocked by his sister's dagger and her longer blade resting against the side of his neck.

"Dead," she announced. "You're distracted, Alec. This was too easy. Focus."

He knew that. But how could he not be when part of him was gone? He forced his thoughts away from there as he fell into a 'guard' stance. "Okay. Again."

*

_October 22 nd, 2016; afternoon_

Allie checked off the last of her squares and frowned darkly at the map.

"Nothing?" Charlie scrutinized the rows and columns of neat crosses.

The younger woman shook her head. "This can't be. I need to go over the map again. They've got to be somewhere. I should have kept looking the way I did at first. He may be keeping the others somehow differently …"

Crouching by Allie's side, Charlie reached out to stop her before she could settle back into her pillow nest. "And maybe they're not in the city," she pointed out. "Take a break, Allie-Cat. You can't go on forever without rest even with the charms."

Auntie Bea snorted. She had arrived a while ago, settled at the table and taken out her knitting, apparently not considering whatever news she brought worth disturbing Allie's focus on the map. "Wise words out of you, Charlotte? Who would have thought I'd live to hear that."

Charlie rolled her eyes.

"If they're outside of the city, there's nothing I can do." Allie looked dejected. "Charlie, what _are_ we going to do if they're outside of the city? You don't—I can _feel_ Alec's pain over having those two missing. We can't just leave them alone with that."

The Bard shook her head. "Don't forget that not everyone's bound to the city, Allie. We'll find them. One way or another."

Allie nodded, though she looked like she was mostly trying to convince herself that everything would turn out well. "I have to at least tell them."

As if on cue, the door opened just that moment to let in the Lightwood siblings and Graham, all three of them looking sweaty and dusty.

Charlie would have been amused by the coincidence, but given that both Allie and Graham were involved here, chance had probably had very little to do with the timing.

"Tell whom what?" Alec asked, his suspicious tone suggesting that he had a good hunch concerning the answer.

Allie indicated the map. "I am through once, and I haven't found any other pockets." She sounded very tired now. "We'll keep looking, of course."

Alec blanched. "We don't have that much time," he pointed out. "If they're kept like we were, they'll be dangerously dehydrated by now already. It's—"

"Actually," Bea interrupted him, "we do have time. Sit. We've decoded most of those circles. That's what I came to tell you, but you were busy hitting each other with sticks and swords and Alysha was still scrying."

They obeyed. You didn't deny an auntie who used that tone unless you had some very good reason for it.

Bea pulled a folded piece of paper out of the bag that contained her spare wool and flattened it on the table. A copy of the circles was drawn on it, the lines of the designs interrupted just enough to keep them from being effective charms. They were labeled.

"So here we have the ones that deflect sight, sound, and people," she pointed out. "These were easy enough after Alysha called to tell us what she thought these circles did to keep bystanders from noticing them."

Both Alec and Izzy frowned at the paper, their expressions clearly saying that there was nothing easy about it from their points of view.

Either oblivious to that or ignoring it, Bea continued. "These, to the best of our ability to determine, keep out time - objectively speaking."

"They keep out _time_?" Izzy asked, at the same time as Alec said: "Objectively speaking?"

Bea shook her head at their impatience. "Anything inside shouldn't age, shouldn't starve, shouldn't die of any other cause unless killed by, say, someone slitting their throat. They're frozen in the moment they were put in there."

"No." Alec shook his head. "I was growing thirsty and hungry. And it was getting worse."

"Ah," Bea's raised index finger stabbed in Alec's direction, making him flinch back a fraction before he caught himself. "But this is the beauty of it. These," she indicated a subset of the design she was talking about, "deliberately exclude the perception of those inside. I'd do that if I was going to use something like this to, say, observe something outside of it. Imagine you're stuck in one moment and watching everything that goes on around you for hours – you wouldn't be able to make any sense of it."

Charlie favored Bea with a long, gaging look. She wasn't sure what she thought of the aunties coming up with uses for a circle like that so quickly. She'd have to find a way to sniff out such pockets without Allie's help, just in case.

"So what's happening to Magnus and Jace and Clary right now if they're stuck in such circles?"

"Our best guess is that they'll feel increasingly thirsty and hungry, but other than the discomfort and potential panic from that, they're not in any danger."

It was clear from Alec's expression that he didn't necessarily think those were acceptable conditions. He studied the labeled images, committing as much of what he saw to memory as he could. "Why?"

"Why, because they won't know they're not in any real danger of starving or dying of thirst," Auntie Bea said, her tone suggesting it should have been obvious.

"No. Why would anyone do that? Clearly we weren't meant to watch anything outside, so why bother with this?" Alec clarified.

Izzy leaned in as well. She was tracing parts of the designs with a finger, mentally comparing them to runes she knew. "What I'd like to know is: how sure are you that this is what these do?"

"Pretty sure," Bea replied to her first. "See, just finding both of you as … clean … as we did made us wonder. No one could spend that long tied down and not at least piss themselves along the way if time were passing normally."

Alec blushed at the thought, but she did have a point.

"And I suppose you were supposed to actually watch whatever was supposed to happen. Which now is not likely to happen anymore, because there are two focuses missing."

"Wait." Izzy's attention had gone from Bea's sketch to Allie's map. "Can't we guess at where the others might be from the locations of the two circles we have?"

"Well, Isabelle." Auntie Bea's voice was cool. "Do you have any idea what kind of design they were going for? Even if we go with the obvious, which is a five-pointed star, do you know its size? Orientation? Are the focus points at the tips of the star or at the intersections of the lines? Have we found two adjacent ones, or two across from each other, or two others? With only two points found, there are hundreds of possible combinations, if not more than that."

"Not really," Jack's voice came from the entrance. "But still enough to be hard to search even from the air. And I bet a good lot of them would be in places we can't reach easily."

He walked over to the map on the floor and squinted down on it. "Which may be a good or a bad thing, depending on whether our perp does have access to them or not."

"'Perp'?" Alec blurted out.

"Don't mind Jack," Bea intervened before the half-dragon could give any explanation. "He's been watching too many crime shows recently. Which is why he's behind on Star Trek."

Neither of the Lightwoods had any idea what Star Trek was, beyond 'a mundane thing', and right then they didn't really care either.

Graham put his tablet on the table. He had pulled up Google Earth and zoomed in on Calgary. The places of their first two finds were marked. Both locations sported double markers.

"We may have a bit of a lead here," he said, vaguely indicating the map with its circled squares. "Since both of the places we do have are basically on top of a destroyed Gate – or as close as they could get. Now, the one on Nose Hill could have been coincidence because of the place of power there, but both?"

"When you say 'destroyed gate'," Alec said, "You don't mean that someone knocked over a fence, right?"

Graham chuckled. "Of course not. They led to the Underrealm. Allie closed the one in the Fort when we had our first date, and the one in the park when she sent Jack's mother home without a return ticket so she couldn't torch the city."

"You guys lead interesting lives," Izzy commented drily. "But you said 'destroyed'."

"They're still points where the barrier between realms was breached once," Bea pointed out. "There's probably still some minor leak of power there, and it would probably be easier to push through to wherever you wanted to be."

Allie was nodding thoughtfully. "Or wherever you wanted to pull someone from. We need a list of all the Gates and closed Gates in the city. Then we can see if any would fit into our possible patterns. We know where the active ones are, at least."

"It's not that hard to go through even in the deactivated ones," Jack noted. "Not if you know what you're doing. I'm still using the Gate on Nose Hill when I need it. They're really not sealed all that tightly."

Graham pulled up a saved file. It had markers spread all over the city. "There are our active Gates. I don't think any of these are promising, though," he said without even looking at them. "Whoever we're up against surely wouldn't want any travelers to stumble into his setups by accident, and anyone coming through a Gate is likely to be able to See and not care much about the wards."

"There are so many of them," Izzy noted. "New York is a lot more… orderly where that's concerned."

Jack snorted. "Or they're just better concealed because you guys are hanging around there and getting in the way. If I finally get a hold of Elessar, I'll ask him about closed Gates along with everything else, but right now he seems to be lying low. Once we have the information, we can see if anything fits into a pattern. If he doesn't resurface, I may have to find another of the Court, though – and convince him I'm going to eat him if he doesn't talk."

Charlie had been tapping out a rhythm on the table, seemingly lost in thought and not really listening. "We may not have to wait that long," she said now, proving that she had had at least one ear on the conversation after all. "There may be another way to sniff them out."

All eyes turned towards her.

"Auntie Bea," she said, fixing the old woman with a hard stare. "You were saying that whoever was caught in one of these circles could be kept there indefinitely. They wouldn't die, but they'd suffer. Right?"

Bea nodded curtly. "That's what I said, Charlotte. Why are you repeating the obvious?"

"Because fear, desperation, panic – those are pretty damned strong emotions," Charlie said. Her irises were darkening as she spoke, giving her an air that wasn't quite human. "Even with those wards, they may grow strong enough to leak out."

 "Fear is an actual smell, too," Jack pointed out. "Not just a metaphysical one. Anything with a good enough nose would be able to track—" He broke off, his words triggering a different line of thought.

He wasn't alone. The fiddler in Charlie's head started on a victory march as pieces clicked into place almost audibly.

Auntie Bea's eyes merely widened a fraction. Alec and Izzy straightened.

"Breadcrumbs." Alec was the first to speak.

"Elaborate," Bea told him, though there was hardly any doubt that they'd all been thinking the same thing.

Alec pushed his chair back so hard it almost toppled over as he stood. "They weren't focus points. They – We were marking a path. Something to follow between Portals."

He brushed one hand through his hair, trying to sort his thoughts.

Izzy picked up where he left off. "We were meant to wake up, unable to move, and rigged so we'd grow more and more desperate as time passed. Then at some point - we would have been like beacons for whatever they're trying to draw."

"Why here?" Alec asked.

"Because things happen in Calgary." Allie had abandoned her map and come to the table. "There's a lot of power here. Also, the city is shielded well, so it's more likely that a passage of any kind would remain unnoticed from the outside."

"Gates." Jack said. "Let's assume something's supposed to come in from one dimension and leave through another. Which one's our entry point and which one's the exit?"

Graham didn't hesitate. "In at the Fort, out in the Park," he said.

Jack frowned at him.

"He's right," Charlie and Bea agreed almost concurrently. Bea waved her hand, indicating for the younger woman to continue.

"The entry point's more likely to be disturbed by someone barreling through from somewhere else and not hitting precisely. It's the one that's anchored more strongly. The circle in the park was chalk, much less effort involved than searing the designs more deeply into the ground. The park's the exit. It wouldn't have mattered if that circle was damaged by the departure. It would have served its purpose already."

They were all on their feet now, except for Bea, who hadn't moved.

Charlie clapped her hands once, sharply. "Let's pack. Graham, arm up. We don't know what we'll be facing. Alec, Izzy, do you need anything more than what you have with you?"

"Charlotte," Bea said, her words full of strained patience. "Do you have any idea how many dimensions there are? You don't know where whatever was supposed to go next."

"I don't need to know." Charlie's voice was flat and even, calmly stating facts. "You don't hide the signal of your homing antennas if you want to guide someone in. They've had half an extra day to build up volume. I'll take us into the Wood, and if the signal's strong enough, I'll be able to latch on to it. If it isn't, we'll try again in an hour. As long as it takes."

"You don't know that you can get out of the Wood into whatever dimension you need to go to."

Charlie's eyes were a deep black now, with no difference at all discernible between pupil and iris - just like the aunties' were permanently. "Yes, I do. If I have a song, I can follow it anywhere."

There was enough power crackling in the room to raise the hairs on Alec's bare arms. Izzy's hand was resting on the hilt of her blade already, a motion borne from many years of habit.

Ignoring their reactions, Bea stood. "I'll get you some of Gwen's potion," she announced. "You might not have the opportunity to bring them here to unfreeze them." She left the room without another word or glance.

"What was that?" Izzy asked when the door closed behind her.

"My Schwartz is larger than your Schwartz," Jack commented.

"What?" Alec was checking his weapons. A longbow hadn't been part of Graham's arsenal, so he'd settled on a crossbow - the only ranged weapon available that wasn't a firearm.

Graham, who had dived into the bedroom as soon as Charlie had given the signal to get ready, returned with a backpack that looked partially packed already.

In the meantime, Allie had gotten busy grabbing things from the kitchen and setting them on the sofa table. Water bottles, pie divided up into Tupperware containers, and tetra packs were waiting to be packed away.

"It's from Spaceballs," she said. "Do you guys never watch any TV?"

"Not really, no," Izzy said, which drew puzzled glances from Allie and Jack alike while Graham started making sandwiches and had no glances to spare for them.

"Metaphysical comparing of cocks," Jack clarified. "Except without the cocks."

"And without the actual comparing," Allie added. "They aren't going to let it come to that because if Charlie turns out to be stronger – which she probably is – in an actual confrontation, the shift of power resulting from that is something no one wants. Including Charlie."

"Charlie's right here," Charlie said. "And we'll probably want to take some spare clothes for your friends, just in case we really don't have time to get back here quickly in between. Sizes?"

Izzy looked like she had just considered helping with the packing, but decided to stay out of it to avoid getting in the way. "Clary's going to look like she's wearing her big sister's clothes in any of your things," she informed the bard. "Jace and Magnus could probably get away with wearing something that fits Brian."

Charlie disappeared down the hallway, returning after a short while with her special guitar and a shoulder bag. Bea came back almost at the same instant, and handed the antidote to Graham, who slipped the bottle into an outside pocket of his backpack.

"Allie, wipe your face and go to bed," Charlie said when the younger woman moved to join them by the door. It sounded like advice, rather than a command, but there was something compelling behind the words anyway. "Or better, go to bed and then wipe your face. You need to catch up on sleep, and you can't come with us where we're going anyway."

For a moment, it seemed like Allie was about to object, but then she nodded once. "Right. I'll see you in a bit." She pulled a startled Alec into a hug and sketched a protection charm on his arm, then gave Izzy the same treatment – though with considerably less of a moment of surprise involved. "Try to be back in time for dinner."

With that, she turned and disappeared into the master bedroom.

*

"Why can't she come where we are going?" Izzy asked as the five of them were walking down the stairs.

"Allie's bound to the city," Jack explained. "She can't leave it. The Wood is definitely outside of city boundaries."

"Oh." That stirred memories in both Lightwoods. "Who bound her? For what?"

Charlie held the door to the yard open for them. "She's the family's anchor here. She bound the family – and herself – to this place seven years ago. It's the price we pay for our powers, being tied to the land."

"The price most of us pay for our powers," Jack threw in.

"Right," Charlie agreed. "There are some we call Wild Powers, where there's just too much power to be contained like that. Currently, there are three of us. Jack, me and our Auntie Catherine, who is banished from this city and whom you can pray you'll never meet because she can be a really nasty piece of work to deal with."

"She's Allie's grandma," Jack supplied helpfully.

Izzy frowned as she watched everyone pile into the car and climbed in last. "Does she know how you're talking about her grandmother?" There was no accusation in her voice - only curiosity.

Graham laughed at that. "Trust me," he said, "Allie will have far less pleasant things to say about her if you ask her. She's the one who banished her from ever returning to Calgary."

That sounded like there was a story behind it that they'd have to explore another time.

*

They left the car at the edge of the park and hiked some way uphill.

They'd been walking for almost half an hour, barely talking to each other, when Charlie pointed. "There."

'There' seemed to be a path leading off of the main road and into empty grassland. They turned left and followed it up between two raised ridges. Just a few steps along that path, Alec and Izzy started to feel the power residue lap at their awareness. Graham had spoken of a place of power… there was no doubt that they were headed towards one.

They crested another ridge, and saw that someone was waiting for them.

Sitting on a boulder, there was a man dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. He was barefoot.

He looked up as they approached.

Even sitting down, it was clear that he was a tall man. He was built like a runner and most definitely related to the Gale family. The handsome face surrounded by dark blond hair was a variation of the same theme Izzy had seen multiple versions of at the apartment.

"Izzy, Alec," Charlie said. "This is David. He's Allie's big brother."

Izzy frowned. "Didn't you say David was your pet stag?"

David, who had risen to his feet in a fluent motion and had just been about to greet them, snorted. Was there something decidedly stag-like in that sound? It must have been a trick of her mind.

"Is there anything we need to talk about, Charlie?" he asked. His eyes were smiling, though. Turning to Izzy, he continued: "Nice to see you're alright. I was worried about you."

"So…" Izzy's confusion showed in her voice. "It really was you who found me?"

He nodded.

"You're… the stag?"

He nodded again.

"I probably shouldn't call you a pet?"

David gave her a smile that she was sure could break hearts. "That would be nice."

"Are you coming with us?" Alec asked.

"Oh, no," David told him. "There's no way I can leave the city. But I'll keep an eye on the spot with Jack, just in case something decides to follow you when you come back, or to use the disturbance of your entrance to slip out when you slip into wherever you're going."

"Wait." Izzy didn't sound happy. "Jack's not coming either?" Having seen Jack in dragon form, she would have felt better about entering an unknown and potentially – probably – dangerous dimension with him.

Jack, digging into Graham's backpack to extract a thermos, a Tupperware box and some bagged sandwiches, shook his head. "I'm too large," he said. "Taking me along – that'd be like setting up a big-ass flaring beacon announcing our presence. We may not want that. I'll stay here and guard, and if need be, I can still come after you to help."

 


	6. Chapter 6

Graham shouldered his backpack and his rifle and put a hand on Charlie's shoulder. Alec and Izzy, following instructions, reached out to hold on to her as well.

Together, they took one step forward, and the world shifted.

From the grassy hill with its boulders and occasional shrubbery, they had stepped into an ancient, lush forest, nature undisturbed by any sentient creature stretching as far in any direction as they could see. Admittedly, thanks to the trees that wasn't too far.

"I was going to say 'Stay close'," Charlie said the moment everyone was in. "But I don't think that'll be necessary." She nodded her head to one side, and the Lightwood siblings followed the direction she indicated.

The treeless space wasn't large enough to be called a clearing. In fact, it was just large enough to accommodate a circle made up of shapes they were only too familiar with now.

"Well, that works for me," Graham said, fishing for his phone and pulling up the camera. "Your friend?"

"Clary." Izzy said, stepping up to the edge of the circle.

Alec was right by her side. He crouched down to get closer to the level of the red-haired woman tied to the ground at the center of the design. "Clary," he said, loudly. "It's Alec and Izzy. If you're awake in there, you can calm down now. We're about to get you out of here and we brought the antidote for what's keeping you immobile. Just give us another few moments."

Predictably, there was no reaction from her.

Graham nodded at Charlie, who had adjusted her grip on her guitar.

They could feel the forest reverberate around them. Some of the plants in the direct vicinity of the circle withered in the blast of that chord.

The sound died away, and so did the rune circle. Alec and Izzy stepped forward, their daggers out, to cut the ties that held their friend. Alec scooped her up and straightened. She lay limp in his arms. If her body hadn't been warm, her chest moving with even breaths, he would have feared she might be dead.

Charlie took his elbow and held her other hand out to Izzy. As soon as she felt Graham's finger on her skin just above her collar, she stepped back into Nose Hill Park.

*

"That went fast," David noted. "And looks like a successful haul."

"Right by the entrance," Charlie said. "Charms seared into the ground as with Alec. Graham, did the photos work?"

Checking his phone, Graham nodded. He looked surprised. "Actually, they did."

"Cool." Charlie gave him happy grin. "I never thought you could use a camera in the Wood."

Alec put Clary down in the grass, and Charlie pulled the thin blanket she had rolled up and secured to the top of her bag out of its straps and tossed it to him.

It was easier to just cover her with that than to try and dress her while she couldn't cooperate.

Even with the magnification charm, Charlie could barely find the punctures anymore. She sketched a charm on them just in case anyway, before mixing water and potion in the cap of a thermos that doubled as a cup.

"Give her some more water," Alec said when Clary had swallowed the last of the mix. "She doesn't need to spend the next quarter hour feeling parched."

Fully in agreement with him, Charlie did as he asked.

*

Clary could only hope that the voices that sounded like Alec's and Izzy's were really theirs.

She'd given up fighting to get her body to move, not so much because Alec had told her to and more so she could focus better on what was going on around her. She certainly was thankful for the water they gave her, and also that her body remembered how to swallow.

In spite of the nature of their unofficial mission, she'd been glad to see Jace act almost like his normal self. Maybe he was finally getting over things. She really hoped so. He still hadn't told Alec and Izzy what had really happened by Lake Lyn, as far as she knew.

Then they'd walked into a trap.

The last thing she knew was that she'd felt herself pass out from the fumes. She'd seen a flash of a rune that she assumed would have rendered her resistant to them or purified the air she was breathing – or something like that – but she'd had no time to whip out her stele and draw it.

After that came darkness, with occasional shreds of memory when her mind hovered close enough to the surface of drug-induced fog to register anything. Sometimes her eyes were open, sometimes they weren't.

*

_October 19 th, 2016_

Voices, talking in her general vicinity. The sound took a while to coalesce into meaning. Meaning didn't necessarily mean sense.

"He leads them in combat, he'll lead the chorus. Two, three, four. The connections will be strongest, and their bond will run through the entire line and keep it together."

"What about him?"

" _That_ stays here for the grand finale."

*

_October 20 th, 2016_

Eyes open, canopy above her. Something was pulling at her arms, wrenching her shoulders. There was something she couldn't quite put her finger on through the fog in her mind.

Oh, right. Pain. Not a lot of it, though. The fog cushioned her against it.

A face moved into her field of vision, looking – not quite familiar, but also not entirely unknown. Like she'd seen someone with a strong resemblance before.

"Fuck! She's looked at me."

"Don't be ridiculous. She's way off in dreamland."

She knew that voice. She probably could have figured out who it was, but that seemed like too much effort.

*

_October 22 nd, 2016, afternoon_

She'd had a lot of time to think about that voice, later, when she'd woken up all the way, the fog had lifted from her, and she'd needed something to occupy her mind with to distract herself from the growing thirst.

Not to mention the increasing panic at being unable to move or make a sound.

She couldn't place it. The feeling of familiarity remained, but her memory of it wasn't enough to assign a name to the voice.

At intervals, she forced herself to be still, to keep her thoughts as quiet as she could while she listened, straining and hoping and fearing at the same time to hear footsteps or voices.

All she did hear were forest sounds, though strangely muted.

Her nose filled with forest scents with every breath, accompanied by another aroma that she associated with only one specific place. She prayed that wasn't where she was. No one was likely to ever find her there.

She figured the thing that kept her immobile had to be a spell of some sort, and all she could do was wait and hope it would wear off, like the cotton in her mind had disappeared. Then maybe she could get free of the straps that held her down. They didn't feel that tight.

That was, if she lived that long. She had no way to tell the time, but every moment seemed to stretch into eternity. For a while, she counted heartbeats.

She was just wondering if she should start on that again, when the backdrop of forest sounds was broken by a set of footfalls nearby. That was strange. She should have heard anyone approaching from farther away.

There were people speaking now, and then the people speaking were Izzy and Alec.

She would have breathed a sigh of relief, but her body merely continued to inhale and exhale as it had before. She couldn't even scowl at Alec for his litany of "you're safe now."

She couldn't hear Jace anywhere and that was, in the end, what made her worry.

So Izzy and Alec had escaped, but Jace had not? Was he dead? Injured? Missing? He surely couldn't be dead. Alec would sound different if he were dead.

What if that wasn't Alec at all?

She forced her thoughts away from that. That way lay madness. A quarter hour, he had said, before someone had held another cup to her lips and given her water that didn't taste of herbs and magic. She'd have to wait that out.

The others settled around her. Names were flying around, belonging to people she didn't know. Charlie. David. Graham. Jack. Charlie was the woman.

Someone pushed some folded fabric under Clary's head, making her marginally more comfortable.

"Jack, don't eat all the sandwiches. We're still going back for Jace and Magnus once Clary comes around."

So they were still missing.

How much time had passed? It felt like hours, but it couldn't have been more than minutes.

"She's probably already 'around', you know." She decided to identify that voice as Jack until proven differently.

"You could save some time if you start filling her in on things now." One of the other men, his voice a little hoarse. Her mother might have called that a whiskey voice.

"Right." Clothes rustled as Alec settled somewhere near her. "So some of this is going to sound crazy…"

*

'Crazy' was maybe not what she would have called it, though that might have had something to do with the fact that it had been barely two months since she'd gone from being oblivious to the world of nephilim and downworlders to being a shadowhunter herself. She'd gotten a lot of practice at suspension of disbelief.

She could feel the moment when the potion reached whichever crucial point in her body it needed to connect with to take effect.

It was like a switch being turned.

Clary opened her eyes and closed them again quickly. The sun was well past noon, but after however long she'd spent with her eyes closed, it took some blinking to adjust to the light.

Alec shut up when he saw her move.

"I'm back," she said, needlessly. "We can go and find Jace and Magnus now."

That drew some chuckling from everyone around.

"You might want to get dressed first," Charlie said. "Not that I'd mind if you don't, but we might be going someplace clothes aren't optional."

She had a point. Clary accepted the folded clothes she was offered. Alec turned away immediately, giving her what privacy there could be out in the wild.

"Izzy was right." Charlie sounded a bit apologetic. "You are going to look like you're playing dress-up in your big sister's clothes. Sorry for that. We didn't exactly have anyone around who's closer to your size to borrow from."

While Charlie was, in fact, thin enough that her things fit Clary in the waist, she had to roll up the sleeves of her sweater and the legs of her jeans a couple of times to compensate for length.

Once dressed, she got up, folding the blanket to hand it back to the others. Her feet were still bare – and cold.

One of the strangers – a tall man with light hair and an air that spoke of wildness barely concealed under a thin veneer of civilization, followed her glance downwards and smiled. He pointed a finger at a patch of dried grass and dirt near Clary.

A flash that looked like fire but gave off no heat followed his gesture.

The next moment, a circle of grass was gone, the ground beneath slightly indented. In the shallow trough stood a pair of top boots, the same color the missing material had been.

"Thank you," Clary said. She'd seen magic do many things in the last eight weeks. Producing footwear out of grass and soil wasn't the weirdest.

Izzy frowned. "If Jack can make clothes out of nothing, why are we all borrowing yours?"

Jack shrugged. "The aunties are uncomfortable when I use sorcery more than I have to, and you don't want the aunties to be uncomfortable. It leads to bad things."

Clary slid her feet into the grass-and-dirt boots. They fit as if they were made for her – which, she guessed, they actually were. She didn't think she'd ever worn anything that felt so comfortable. She'd have to see how they held up when put to work.

Izzy handed her a dagger with a belt sheath.

"I don't have a lot to add," Clary said while she put it on. "Just some small bits and pieces. Did Consul Malachi have any relatives?"

Surprise registered on the Lightwoods' faces. "Sure," Alec said. "Why?"

"'Cause I could swear the man who laid me down in that forest looked like a younger version of him."

They exchanged a long look. Finally, Izzy said aloud what they were all thinking. "We'll have to assume there's still some Circle connection in Idris, and someone was trying to get us out of the way."

"I'd say that's ridiculous," Alec told her, though he was nodding. "But I would have said the same about Consul Malachi being in the Circle. We'll stick with not contacting anyone back home until we know what's going on." He gave Clary a long, scrutinizing look. "Are you going to be okay, Clary, or do you need more of a break before you set out again?"

To his credit, he didn't suggest that they would go and try to find Jace and Magnus without her.

"I'll be fine," she declared. "I'd love to have one of those sandwiches before we leave, though." She probably could have eaten a number of them, actually.

Charlie handed her a Tupperware container and a plastic fork. "Try some pie," she suggested. "It's more filling than the sandwiches, and we'd better take those in case we have to walk long enough to need some sustenance. Assuming Jack left enough for all of us."

"I can always show you how to do a nourishment rune-charm," Alec suggested.

"And where's the fun in that?" Charlie shot back.

The pie was apple with a good helping of lemon, and Clary was sure that it was about the best thing she'd eaten in her life to date. That was probably owed at least in part to the condition her stomach was in, but she wasn't going to let that knowledge ruin the experience.

"I've texted the photographs to Allie," the man with the whiskey voice said. "I'm sure she'll pass them on to the aunties once she wakes up. Anything else I should send to them?"

Alec shook his head. "I think we'll go through everyone's memories once we're all back," he decided. "Unless you remember anything else that's relevant immediately?" The latter was directed at Clary.

Not sure what was relevant immediately, she recounted the bits she remembered as precisely as she could in between bites of pie.

"Well," Izzy said when she finished. "At least we know now that our theory was right. And more than that – Alec was the beginning of the chain, and we only have to search in one direction to find the others."

*

"I know this place," Clary said. She had suspected as much before, both while she'd been tied down and when she heard Charlie refer to the location they were going to go to as the Wood, but she was certain the moment they stepped into it.

"Of course." Alec released Charlie's hand and looked around, momentarily confused by the way the forest had changed since the last time they'd been here. Only the patch of bare ground where Clary had been lying remained to confirm that they were in the same location, and it was already clear that the bare earth was being reclaimed by plants growing supernaturally fast. "We found you over there."

She shook her head. "No. I've been here before. Before that, I mean. Back, when Meliorn took Jace and me to that other dimension… that other timeline? He brought us here, and he opened a portal from here."

"Right." Charlie adjusted her guitar. "This place is between the dimensions, so it's easier to get from here into any of them than it is to get from one into another. Unless you're Jack, in which case you just open a Gate."

"I can open a portal," Clary told her, "Not sure I can open a portal into another dimension, though."

Charlie looked at her, her head cocked to one side like a bird's. "We may want to find out about that. But first, we find your friends. You know the rules if you've been here before. Stay close to me, don't stray and don't fall behind. I can probably follow your song and find you if you get lost, but we'll lose time and I'll be cranky."

"Right." Clary had no intention of getting lost. "So how do we find Jace and Magnus?"

"We start by settling on which of them we'll find first. Any idea who's more likely to be closest?"

"Jace." All three of them said at once.

With a raised eyebrow, Charlie studied each of them in turn. "That sounds very certain."

Clary nodded. "What I heard – the connection that's strongest. That's the _parabatai_ bond between Alec and Jace."

Alec nodded, but his eyes shone with barely suppressed fury and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

Under Charlie's intense look, he sighed. "That, and someone called the one they were keeping on site 'that', according to Clary. So it's probably the downworlder they kept."

*

Charlie gave herself a moment to rein in her anger. Jack was half dragon, and if anyone had called him a "that", she wouldn't have guaranteed for that person's continued well-being. Neither, she thought, would Alec, and she didn't blame him.

"Jace, then," she said when she knew she had her voice under control and wouldn't make anyone think she was angry at _them_. "We must be within reach, or the entire breadcrumb setup wouldn't make any sense. So what I want you to do is focus on him as hard as you can. Focus on whatever bond connects you to him. I'll try to pick up his song from you."

That was easier than it should have been.

In fact, it was scarily easy.

In her family, everyone's song was woven in with the songs of many others, siblings, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles, aunties… They were connected, merged into a symphony that made up the Gale family. Separating out one connection took work as she had to discard every song that wasn't the one she was looking for until only the target was left.

These three were more like solitary voices with barely any backing music at all. There was a connection between Alec and Izzy, of course, and a much lesser one to Clary. Other than that, the threads of song that connected them to others were mostly thin, insubstantial things. It wasn't just distance that stretched them so tightly. Distance didn't matter in the Wood.

Izzy in particular was a soloist with almost nothing there to hold her up other than the strength of her own music.

For Charlie, surrounded, caught and held by her family all her life in spite of also being apart from them as a Wild Power, diving into that song was an experience that was almost physically painful.

She didn't even bother to discard those near-inaudible echoes from all three of them, setting aside only less than a handful of tunes that were strong enough to risk interfering, should they suddenly turn their volumes further up.

Playing their songs, Alec's, Izzy's and Clary's, though each separately, she resisted the urge to spin them into one and bring them, at least, closer together. It wasn't her place to change their songs if they had chosen to distance themselves from everyone like that. She wasn't an auntie yet, going ahead with whatever she felt was the best for others without asking their opinion. They'd be talking about this, though. Later.

She spun off into the song that was trailing off of theirs and speeding not out of but through the Wood. The song she could confidently label 'Jace'. She could have picked it up from Alec alone. Playing in a constant echo with his, it stood out even against the sibling bond between Alec and Izzy and the second-circle connections spinning out from both Alec and Clary – hers running into the same song Charlie was looking for, further easing the path.

There was a lot of a more familiar sound mixed into that song.

Her hands on the strings never stilled as Charlie indicated their direction with a jerk of her head just before she started to walk down that path.

She didn't even know Jace yet, but she was already certain that she was never going to listen to _Within Temptation_ again without thinking of him. It was almost ironic, given the size of the orchestra _they_ had on stage.

*

Charlie made it through the song twice and halfway through a third reiteration. She set a quick pace that the nephilim kept up with easily. Graham, seventh son of a seventh son notwithstanding, was starting to show the effort of walking through the Wood. Rooted far more firmly in his own dimension than any of them were, he had to put in several times the effort either of them did. He didn't complain, but he had slipped out of his jacket somewhere around the first time the tune had repeated.

The circle did act to mute Jace's song.

Focused more on the music than on her surroundings, trusting that the path would shape itself to the track they followed, Charlie found the fourth design by walking right into it.

The moment she passed the wards, the volume turned up. She let go of her guitar, but managed to stop herself from clamping her hands over her physical ears. Instead, she dampened her metaphysical reception, which had previously been set to full alert.

Graham went about his usual task of recording the site, while Charlie took a moment to anchor a song of her own in the location. Now they'd be able to find this spot again after leaving the Wood and returning. In spite of her rather flexible relationship with time, Charlie preferred not to spend too much time stationary in the Wood. Time did strange things in here, and it could be a pain to find your exit moment if you weren't sure when you were starting from. They'd not wait in here for Jace to wake up.

In contrast to Alec and Clary, Jace had his eyes open, looking straight up into the foliage. It made his lack of reaction to their presence feel even more disconcerting, though they knew very well by now that his mind would be awake inside that unresponsive body.

Pictures taken, Charlie removed the designs, grateful that there was only going to be one more circle to destroy after this. She hated that sound, and she hated being at the center of it and having the full blast hit her eardrums.

Alec managed to lift his friend up from the ground, his face determined. He'd carry him out of the Wood and farther if he had to.

Luckily, Charlie thought, he wouldn't have to. Every entrance into the Wood left a mark, and since there was only a single entrance point that had the signatures of all five of them so far, it wasn't hard to sight on that, aim and, with a quick "I'll be right back" to the others, step out into Nose Hill Park, one hand on Alec's arm.

Her recent marker meant that all she had to do to return where the three others waited for her was to take one step backwards.

"Limited transport capacity," she said as she reappeared between them. "I can only take so many people through at the same time."

"If I had my stele, I could have tried a portal," Clary pointed out, putting her hand on Charlie's arm.

"Maybe portal charms work the same as portal runes," Izzy suggested, mirroring her on the bard's other side. Graham already had a hand resting on her shoulder again.

*

Alec had spread the blanket over Jace and started mixing the antidote when Charlie returned with the other three. Jack was standing by holding the water bottle. Given the state of the sandwich he'd just been biting into when Alec had emerged from the wood, they couldn't have been gone for more than seconds from the points of view of those remaining in the park.

He frowned as he looked down at Jace. Maybe it was that strange, unmoving stare, interrupted by irregular blinking, that made the difference - but he thought that Jace looked worse than Clary had. Actually, he thought he looked worse than he himself had in the pictures Graham had taken, too.

Their _parabatai_ bond didn't suggest that there was anything wrong with him other than the obvious, which they were about to take care of.

Alec sat down in the grass by his friend and adopted brother's side.

"We have the cure for what's wrong with you now, Jace," he said as he reached out to slide one arm under Jace's shoulders to lift his upper body into a position that would make swallowing easier. He shifted, moving closer until he was positioned so that he could lean Jace against himself. "Give it a few minutes, and you'll be fine."

He didn't move from where he sat when Jace had swallowed the potion, and he didn't move after he had given him another cup of clear water, which Jace drank, but far less greedily than Clary had. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

No one commented on his choice. Clary settled down on Jace's other side, leaning her head against his shoulder and stroking the back of his hand as they started to fill him in on the details.


	7. Chapter 7

Jace was reasonably sure that it was all his fault.

Surely, he should have realized they were walking into a trap. Surely, he should have noticed something and warned the others. Surely, he should have managed to fight his way free so everyone else could be saved, too…

But he hadn't, and he couldn't, and he had woken unable to move a muscle and with a thirst that suggested he hadn't had anything to drink since they'd left on that ill-fated mission.

He didn't know how long he had been out, but ironically he felt more rested than he had since their return from Lake Lyn – or possibly before that. He didn't remember if he had dreamed in whatever drug-induced sleep he'd been caught until just then, but he _had_ slept.

Now he was awake, and he had to find a way to get out of wherever he was.

First, he needed to be able to move.

He focused. He didn't need a stele to active a rune, so he thrust his mind on his iratze in the hope that it would burn out whatever held him in position.

It didn't. It didn't do so at the second, third or fourth attempt either.

He could feel the rune activate. His bruises and small cuts, split knuckles from where he had rammed his fist into the face of one of their attackers in the cottage, had removed themselves at the first activation. Beyond that, there was nothing.

Listening, he determined that he had to be outdoors. The smells suggested a forest. The fact that no animal came to approach his unnaturally still form to check him out, take a bite or use him as a heat source suggested that he was warded against outside interference.

That was reassuring in a way. It suggested whoever had put him here didn't want him to come to any harm – at least not just yet.

That in turn indicated that there would be water at some point, and that that point would be before he would die of dehydration.

He waited.

No one came.

Time stretched out, turning seconds into minutes and minutes into eternity. The thirst wasn't the worst there was to it. Not yet, in any case.

Being alone with his own mind – that was infinitely worse, at least for the time being. It gave him ample opportunity to think through what had happened by Lake Lyn, and the consequences – the consequences that Clary still denied existed.

No matter how often she repeated that it had been the angel who brought him back, that nothing more was going to happen due to that – he knew better.

It wasn't just that there was always a price when you brought someone back from the dead.

It was that he knew better because he was experiencing it.

As if on cue, another one of those episodes hit him, a feeling like a million claws digging into his flesh, leaving his body trembling, his muscles cramping uncontrollably and him gasping in pain. Except this time, he couldn't even do that. That would have required some control.

He'd thought he'd gone through some pretty bad episodes before, but this one was worse. Nothing could have made him feel more helpless than lying there, screaming mutely as the pain tore through him. In that moment, he would have done anything to make it go away.

It passed eventually, the wave ebbing, leaving him exhausted and shaken. He wanted nothing more than to curl up and wait for the tremors to go away, but that would have required moving, and his body still wouldn't move if he told it to.

His eyes were open now, though, and he was looking up into the lush foliage of an ancient forest. It reminded him of that place Meliorn had taken Clary and him to when he had helped them get into that other reality. There had been demons following them that day.

He didn't see any wards around him, but that didn't mean there weren't any. The wards Valentine had made Dot place around his ship hadn't been visible either, unless you walked into them and were boiled alive.

Forcing his mind to calm down, he went through his memories of that last mission once again, little as they were. He'd seen Magnus, bleeding. He'd felt Alec's shock through their bond. He'd heard the breaking glass, smelled the gas – and anything after that was a blur. He knew he had cut down at least one of their attackers, and he'd seen Izzy take one down, too. Clary had been behind him, covering his back.

There was no way he could extract anything useful from the memory, and eventually, he forced his mind away from it.

He counted the branches above him to keep his mind focused on something other than his growing fears. Alec and Izzy would have laughed at the thought. They thought him to be utterly fearless.

Well, if the recent occurrences with Valentine hadn't been enough to teach him about fear, then the days since Lake Lyn had certainly done it. Never knowing when the next episode was coming on, never knowing if he was going to be able to conceal it from the others.

One thing, he thought, he knew for certain. If anyone found out what had happened, the time when everyone had thought he had demon blood would seem like a picnic. At the same time, there was the constant worry of what would happen if he were suddenly incapacitated during a mission. He might end up putting everyone in danger.

That alone should have been reason to at least let Alec know – it was strange enough that he didn't seem to pick up those fits through their _parabatai_ bond – but as often as Jace told himself that, he decided to delay the inevitable just a little longer.

Now, the entire thing might have become a non-issue, but he was hardly in a situation where he could feel relieved by that. He couldn't sense Alec, but he didn't feel the profound sense of loss that he was sure would have accompanied his death. It was rather like the feeling when he'd been shielded on Valentine's ship.

The thirst was growing worse, and without really thinking about it, he reached out with his mind and activated his nourishment rune. That should serve to keep his body hydrated as well – and if whoever had put him here came back to bring him water so he wouldn't die, he'd be in a much better condition than they would expect.

That was some plan he could cling to, at least.

It wasn't long after that when he heard a sound that didn't belong in the forest.

Someone was playing a guitar.

The tune, though he was sure he had never heard it before, seemed strangely familiar. It was also coming straight towards him.

Soon, he could hear footsteps accompanying the music. Several people were walking briskly and without talking.

He was sure that his suspicion of being hidden and warded was accurate when they came closer and there was nothing to suggest that they'd spotted him.

If they kept approaching at that speed, they'd soon trip over him – literally, given how the music seemed to beeline for him.

The musician entered his field of vision – a tall, very thin woman with colorful hair. He could even tell when she broke through the wards by the way she stopped short in her tracks.

Then Clary's face appeared to her right, and the feeling of Alec through their bond flared up strong and evenly as his _parabatai_ came up on her left. Izzy wasn't far behind.

No matter how much he wanted to talk to them, to give them a sign that he was awake and reasonably well, his body still wouldn't cooperate.

They didn't seem to expect anything of the sort, though, and neither did they seem particularly disturbed by his condition. There was a man with them whom he didn't know, and who went about talking pictures of the area with his phone in a way that suggested there was a certain routine to it.

The sound that followed was not a sound that should have come from a guitar. Whatever else it did, it made the grass under Jace vanish, leaving him with the feeling of bare earth against his back.

Jace's ears were still ringing from it when Clary dropped by his side and cut the straps that held him to the ground – needlessly, since he couldn't have moved even without them. She took his hand in hers and lifted it to her cheek briefly before kissing the back of his hand. "You'll be out of here and free in a few minutes, Jace," she told him.

The stranger moved closer. His phone was gone, and he started to reach out towards Jace when Alec stopped him.

"No, Graham. I'll do that."

Kneeling across from Clary, Alec sorted Jace's limbs so he could pick him up more easily. "I hear it's not that safe to wait in here until you can shake off the potion," he said as he slid one arm behind Jace's back. "So we're taking you back to the park for that."

Slowly, balancing his heavy load, Alec climbed back to his feet.

The shift in position caused Jace's head to flop to one side. He cursed silently at his inability to control as much as a single muscle.

He could feel them leave that odd dimension after just a few steps. The feel of the air changed, forest sounds were replaced by chatter and the random sounds of people moving, and the forest smells by the distinctive odor of mustard.

*

Jace threw on the clothes he'd been offered, not much concerned about privacy. It wasn't like everyone here hadn't seen him stark naked already.

He had listened to the unlikely tale Alec and Izzy gave him with growing unease. He should have felt far more resistance to the idea that their own people were behind having them captured.

Unfortunately, he could follow the reasoning. Between knowing all that they had learned in the last few weeks, and their connections to the Downworld, it wasn't at all inconceivable that someone would think leaving them in a position in which they might spread their knowledge of what had happened, of who had been involved and how, was too dangerous.

The Council – or what remained of it – had been fast enough to cover up Consul Malachi's involvement in any case, and relegating Alec to a position in which he would have far less opportunity to make himself heard.

"Ready," Jace declared, still tightening his belt to make sure the jeans stayed where they were supposed to. "Let's go and get Magnus."

Stay in motion, he told himself. He'd had too much time to think that day already. Too much time to worry. Too much time to fear. It was better to keep busy, to remain focused on a safer subject.

Someone shoved a sandwich into his hands.

"I used my nourishment rune," he said. "I don't need a stele."

The sandwich didn't go away.  Apparently these people didn't believe in the wisdom of using runes for nutrition.

Admittedly, the idea of eating real food wasn't too unpleasant right now – in spite of the nourishment rune.

He took the sandwich.

"I can eat as we walk."

Charlie, the woman with the guitar, rolled her eyes. "Don't leave crumbs all over the Wood. I once accidentally planted a beer tree in there. I'm pretty sure that's considered an intrusive species, and that would go for a sandwich bush, too," she cautioned. "Besides, you never know what'll follow, and we are just sweeping up the last trail of breadcrumbs in there."

It took him a moment to understand that she was referring to them.

She didn't discuss the matter of the sandwich any further. Instead, she grasped his arm, held out her other hand to Clary, and hummed a note as she stepped into that other world. The Wood, as she called the forest dimension. Meliorn had called it the farthest edges of the Seelie Glade. He'd assumed it was inside the Seelie Realm, but apparently that had been a misconception. He wondered if Meliorn had been aware of that – or even created it on purpose.

*

Graham had come in with them, standing right behind Charlie, who was gone as quickly as they had come, only to return in the blink of an eye with Izzy and Alec on either arm.

Jace frowned at her. "You're not using a portal," he observed. "Or a marked entrance. How do you do it?"

With a shrug, she arranged her guitar and checked the tuning. "I've been able to enter the Wood at will – and with a bit of musical support – from any bit of greenery since I was barely fifteen," she told him. "Got lost and almost died the first time around, so I learned to navigate it the really hard way. I don't do that anymore now, though. Get lost, I mean."

There was something behind the way she said it that suggested there was more to it, but he decided not to pry.

"At first I needed something like at least a copse of trees or a few bushes. Over time, I could use a flower bed or anything large enough to put a foot on. These days, I don't even need that. I can slip between the sounds of anything I hear. It's a lot more comfortable to use the floral entrance, though."

She moved a little way to the left, until she stood on a rapidly shrinking patch of bare earth. Glancing up, Jace recognized the branches above.

Charlie looked at Alec. "I want you to focus on Magnus now. All of you, but Alec in particular. I'll pick up his Song, and we'll follow the same way we did with Jace. Most of you know the drill."

"Most of you" meant everyone but Jace, clearly. He nodded anyway.

For a moment, she seemed to be listening to the forest sounds – or to something only she could hear. Then her hands started to move on the strings of her guitar, slowly at first, exploring the tune. It was different from the one that had brought her to Jace. This music had a strange, almost exotic quality to it. It felt old – very old – and yet entirely new, not comparable to anything he knew.

Charlie shifted her weight, prepared to take a step forward. Alec had already put a hand on her shoulder, and so had Graham.

She froze in mid-movement, her hand slapping down hard on the strings of her guitar to silence them.

"We're not following that," she said, her voice suggesting that that decision was final. "Back to the park. We can discuss there."

*

"First – and before anyone panics," Charlie said, and although she said 'anyone', she locked her eyes on Alec as she spoke. "I have marked that place in the Wood. I can take us back to that location and that time at any time. We're not objectively losing time by regrouping."

She could see him forcefully swallow what he had been about to tell her.

"What went wrong?" he asked instead. The calm in his voice was only slightly forced, and Charlie gave him credit for his self-control. "You said you could follow wherever he was…"

Charlie nodded. "I said that. And I could. I picked up his song and I could have followed it out. It just wouldn't have been sensible."

She'd already started to push through, breaking into whatever dimension Magnus' song trailed off to. It was easy – as if someone had already perforated the fabric that separated the dimensions to make sure the passage would be smooth and quick.

That was when she had realized that if she had gone to the effort of laying such a trail to lure something to her, she wouldn't want that something to be let loose at the destination. Even if she was somehow going to control it or bargain with it, she'd want precautions in place just to make sure it stayed where she wanted it until she was through with it.

Then she'd looked ahead.

"No matter which dimension I leave into, there should always be a lot of background music," she told them. "Tunes attached to people living there, or to people who passed through, echoes from things that happened… what there shouldn't be is a void in which only a single song is playing."

She tried to gage if they understood what she was getting at.

It was David who clarified after a moment.

"You would have walked into a trap if you'd followed through."

Charlie nodded. "My best guess – and here my best guess is as good as anyone's – is that we would have come out in the middle of one of those circles, with the full force of all the wards we've seen and possibly more on us. We might not have been able to get back out, and those waiting would have been trapped in the Wood, too."

"So," Clary was frowning at her. "What do we do?"

"We go home and have dinner," Charlie said. "I need to eat badly anyway. We tell the aunties. We try to figure out what dimension he's being kept in. Then we jump into that dimension in another location, and we go get him through the back door. The Wood doesn't know time, so I can take us out earlier than we go in if we have to do that."

She'd been eating the last of the sandwiches, but it hadn't been enough. It was never enough, and hadn't been since the day she'd nearly killed herself travelling almost twenty years into the future. Her magic had gotten used to feeding on her body that day, and though months had passed since, she'd been unable to regain and keep a healthy weight. Even the short time jumps she'd taken today to get them into and out of the Wood without losing time were making themselves felt.

As if on cue, her stomach made an audible noise.

Izzy laughed and reached for Charlie's hand. "Nourishment charm, Charlie?"

Well… why not? It couldn't exactly get any worse. She pulled back her sleeve to expose a bit of uncharmed skin and watched Izzy draw the design there in some of their leftover water.

Her stomach did settle the moment she completed the design.

"Thanks," she said, committing the lines to memory. She'd have to see how that interacted with her magic, but it was certainly worth remembering.

*

They were too many for the car now, but a quick text to one of the Gale cousins living along the park easily secured them a second ride.

Cousin Peggi, just a few years older than Charlie, declared that she'd had to drive over anyway since she needed to talk to Gwen about some recipes.

Judging from the way she said 'recipe', this wasn't about pie. A pharmacist by profession, Peggi may have been the only Gale woman currently in Calgary who was able to rival Gwen's skill with potions.

Apparently, her driving was a good deal more city-appropriate than Charlie's, since the Bard and her passengers had made it all the way into the shop by the time her car pulled up in front of the windows.

Charlie interrupted her summary for Gwen and Joe, who were alternating between listening and keeping the twins Evan and Edward from toppling over any part of the displays to glance at the approaching nephilim.

She did a double-take and looked again, following Jace all the way until Peggi pushed the door open and he stepped inside, undoing the effect of the Clearsight charm. She hadn't been the only one to see. It was impossible to misinterpret the way they, including Alec and Izzy, were now studying their friend.

"What?" Jace asked. He looked suddenly nervous under their scrutiny.

Charlie had the distinct feeling that he at least had a suspicion.

Gwen didn't waste any time. "What happened to you?" she asked, a warning against avoiding her or trying for any kind of subterfuge evident her voice.

He opened his mouth and closed it again, trying to find the right words and failing. Clary moved closer to him, hovering at his shoulder as if determined to defend him with her bare hands if she had to. There was more to that than second-circle protectiveness, Charlie thought. Whatever was going on, she knew something the other two did not.

"There is a charm on the window," Charlie explained. Her voice was pitched to be soothing. Jace looked like he was about to bolt, and while she knew that she could find him again anywhere, now that she had his song, she really didn't feel like chasing after a panicked nephilim. "It doesn't do anything other than show us what things – and people – really are like."

Peggi had moved sideways and was now positioned just inside the door, effectively blocking the exit.

"What did we just see, Jace?" It wasn't a rhetorical question. It wasn't even a trick question. So far, Charlie could only guess at what was going on, and if his reaction had been different, she wouldn't even have assumed that he knew that anything out of the ordinary was going on at all.

For a moment, Jace had the look of a cornered animal. He turned his head, just enough to spot Peggi from the corner of his eye and realize that he wasn't going to be able to avoid giving answers.

Clary rested a hand on his arm. "Jace, you have to tell them," she urged. "It's nothing bad. Raziel wouldn't—"

He stopped her with a brief motion of his hand.

"Raziel wouldn't what?" Alec asked. "Jace. Whatever is going on, tell us. What _was_ that?"

Apparently done with rifling through alternative options, Jace let himself lean into Clary, all fight going out of him. "Did I look dead?" he asked. "Did it show you a corpse? How bad--?" His hand was rubbing a spot close to his heart absent-mindedly, and Charlie couldn't help but notice that Alec's hand had gone to the same spot on his own body, as understanding didn't so much dawn on his face, but rush in with a vengeance.

"You died." His voice was neutrally stating a fact. Then it grew increasingly upset as he continued. "There by Lake Lyn. I felt your death because you actually _died_. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what was going on there. Jace!"

Jace looked devastated. Unable to meet his friend's eyes, he stared at the tips of his sorcery-made boots.

"My rune was gone because _you_ were gone, and it came back because you … came back … somehow." Alec sounded like he couldn't believe what he was saying.

Clary pulled Jace closer against herself. "Nothing bad happened!" she asserted with a vehemence that surprised Charlie. "The angel brought him back because I asked him to. It was his gift. He didn't come back changed, and there are no bad consequences from it!"

"There always are consequences when you bring someone back," Jace muttered, his voice barely audible.

"Let me get this straight." Charlie stepped forward and pointed her finger at Jace. "You died." Alec. "You felt it." Clary. "You had him brought back by a creature you call an angel."

"Raziel," Clary supplied. "The angel who created the shadowhunters. Valentine called him, but I killed Valentine and I gave some of my blood and he granted me a wish. Raziel, that is."

"Stop making things more confusing," Charlie told her. She turned back to Jace. "And now you are afraid you might be some kind of zombie or hosting some hellish fiend in your body who's waiting to burst out, or been driven insane by the experience without knowing it just yet, or something along those lines because you got closer to the border to the lands of the living than most and made it back?"

Jace's eyes were closed now, as if he didn't want to see what his friends were going to do. "Essentially."

Peggi stepped away from the door and took Jace firmly by the shoulders, steering him towards a single chair that was moderately priced and looking like someone had crossed various pieces of furniture that were not supposed to go together.

"Sit before you fall over," she told him. "You're white as a sheet now." She'd barely hesitated before saying 'sheet', though no one doubted she'd been thinking 'corpse'. "Let's go about this with a bit of logic: How long were you gone?"

Jace shook his head. He had no idea.

Peggi turned towards Clary, who made a vague motion with her hands.

"I didn't check the time," she said. "I was knocked out for part of it, too. Not very long."

"It would be helpful if we had something a bit more specific," Peggi told her.

Alec had come over to them. He looked ready to defend his _parabatai_ by any means necessary, should any of the present Gales decide to turn on him for having been dead. "We went after them when I thought Jace was dead and we realized that Clary was probably alone with Valentine and needed help," he said. "But she didn't. By the time we got to them, Valentine was dead and she and Jace were kissing on the ground." He tried to remember the time display when they'd talked to the inquisitor about having to portal into Idris. They'd merely said that her grandson was in danger, and she'd been more than cooperative at hearing that. He didn't bother to calculate how long it had taken them to walk from the portal to the lake. It hadn't been long, and Jace must have come back before Clary had started kissing him anyway. "Six, seven minutes maybe?"

"There you go." Peggi sounded perfectly satisfied.

All four nephilim stared at her.

She met their uncomprehending looks with one of her own.

"What?" she asked. "Don't you cover this in your first-aid instructions?"

Alec shook his head. "We don't cover people coming back from the dead, no."

Peggi rolled her eyes. "When the heart stops beating, you have a time window of a few minutes to start it up again before someone's gone for good. Even Muggles know that."

"Who does?"

Charlie sighed. "What you call mundanes," she clarified.

"Mundanes know how to bring someone back from the dead?" Izzy sounded completely shocked. "And they're not suffering any consequences for it?"

"Now, I wouldn't say that," Peggi said. "Typically, when someone's heart stops, there's a reason for it, and that kind of damage rarely heals without any consequences. Also, when the heart stops, there's not a lot of time before the brain takes damage, so there's always a risk someone will come back but have lost some skills, or memories, or worse. But that's not an issue connected to crossing back and forth. Basically, you just don't _cross_ for the first ten or so minutes after your heart stopped."

The four were nodding now as if there was, after all, some information in there that they recognized.

"If mundanes know this…" Alec looked from Jace to Clary. "Why didn't you know? You grew up as a mundane." He managed to not make it sound accusatory.

Clary had already moved closer to Jace again. She looked torn between relief and annoyance. "I did know," she admitted. "I mean, I knew you can resuscitate. I didn't make the connection. I'm not used to _mixing_ worlds! And I wouldn't know how, or how long you have for it. We don't just randomly go around and learn that in high school or something."

"So now that we've established Jace didn't come back as some kind of twisted hell-version of himself, could we maybe talk about what the door showed us?" Charlie asked, interrupting her. "You guys can sign up for a CPR class when you're back home and learn all about the mundane way of bringing people back from the dead."

Jace inhaled deeply and held his breath for a moment, steeling himself for what was to come. "No matter what you say, I do know _something_ happened." He told them then, about the fits, the cramps, the pain – and the nightmares.

When he was done, Clary had her arms around him, holding him tightly. Alec stood close, apparently not knowing quite what to do with his hands, as if he wanted to reach out but didn't quite dare. Izzy had joined them. Whatever was coming, it was clear they'd be in it together.

"If it was brain damage from dying," Izzy said after he was done, "It'd be there all the time, right?"

"Probably," Charlie confirmed. "And there'd be no reason for the door to show him looking like someone stuck a bunch of fishing lines into him."

"Wait – what?" Jace straightened. "Fishing lines?"

Alec took pity on him. "Through the door, you looked like something was connected to you by lines of power. Thin ones, but many of them. Like something's tapping into you. Also like you were blurry and faded somehow."

"Don't worry about the blurriness now," Charlie told him. "You all show up like that. It seems to be your default."

Jace's face fell. "Then I did bring something back with me after all?"

Auntie Gwen stepped forward. "Nonsense," she declared, in a tone that brooked no argument. "Correlation does not equal causation. Just because two things occur around the same time, doesn't mean one caused the other." The way she stared at Jace now made it seem as if she could still see those lines even without the door to help her. Given that she was an auntie, she probably could.

That thought gave Charlie an idea, and she shifted her own vision to bring the metaphysical energies into focus. It wasn't something she liked to do in the store, since the number of items holding power made the exercise distracting.

At closer inspection, some of those lines seemed to be stuck to Jace's skin only, while others apparently had fused with him, reaching deeper. She couldn’t give any sensible reason for it, but Charlie was pretty sure the latter were older.

"I think," she said after another moment of consideration, "that something has realized it can't just grab you or your energy in one go, so it's trying to reel you in slowly. It's got you on its hook – or hooks, as the case may be – and it's going to keep adding until it reaches critical mass."

"What happens then?" Jace asked. He seemed to have gone even paler, which was quite a feat.

"I'm not sure you want to find out," Gwen told him. "Go upstairs. I'll call the others and we'll see what we can do about it."


	8. Chapter 8

_October 22 nd, 2016, late afternoon_

"Why don't I feel any of it?" Alec asked. He had lifted his shirt and was staring at his _parabatai_ rune. "Why doesn't our bond pass that on?"

Jace was sitting on the sofa, Clary and Izzy on either side of him, their arms around him. They'd barely been through the door to the apartment when the episode had come on, leaving Jace helpless on the floor, pain and spasming muscles temporarily incapacitating him.

Charlie had tuned up her magic vision some more, just in time to spot the last jiggling of another barb settling into what to her was the core of Jace's song.

Allie must have done some speed-sleeping, since she was up again already, busily moving around her kitchen. The cup she shoved into the blond man's hands was steaming and spreading the thick, sweet scent of hot chocolate – made the right way, with pure chocolate melted in cream, rather than the sad excuse that was powder dissolved in milk.

Turning to Alec, Charlie recalled the way the green glow that showed her metaphysical power had acted. 

"I think it does," she told him. "But you're shielded against that kind of energy. It just goes up to your skin, and there it stops."

Jace gave a dry, humorless laugh. "We're all supposed to be shielded," he said when everyone turned to him. "Maybe dying broke the shield."

"Gwen will be sad to hear if there _is_ some causation involved after all," Charlie remarked. She studied them, each in turn. With an idea what she was looking for, she could spot their shields, just barely. They were applied so tightly they acted as if they were part of their cores. "I'd say it's possible. They seem to be tied into your life force."

"So really all we need to do is shield Jace again, right?" Clary asked. She was resting her head against his shoulder, one hand stroking his back. It would have been impossible to fit as much as a sheet of paper between them.

Charlie and Allie exchanged a look, and it was Allie who spoke.

"We can give him _a_ shield. Not the same one you have. And we'll have to get those tethers out of him first."

"That's why Gwen called the other aunties," Charlie added. "We'll need their power, and their skill for that."

"You can't just—" Izzy let go of Jace to pretend to strum a guitar.

The older woman laughed. "Sure," she said. "Do you happen to have a song in mind? Something that says 'dig a dozen barbs out of someone's life force without harming him, and by the way, keep new ones from sinking in at the same time'? The problem with our magic is that, no matter how powerful you are you still have to follow rules. I can't just make something up."

Allie raised an eyebrow in her direction, and Charlie's mouth twitched into a grimace.

"Okay, I could, but I can't ad lib it and have it be safe. And while I don't know what critical mass _is_ , I'm afraid we're getting close to it."

"How long will they take to arrive?" With about half a cup of hot chocolate inside him, Jace had straightened a little. Now that he wasn't trying to hide it, though, he looked utterly exhausted – and not a small bit terrified.

"They're downstairs," Allie said offhandedly, as if there was nothing odd at all about her knowing this. "Probably coming up with a course of action right now."

"Great." Jace downed the rest of the cup and wiped a dark smear from his lips. "I hope this won't involve killing me again."

The fierce look that suddenly settled on Clary's face recommended that they'd better not even suggest any such thing.

Charlie didn't get the opportunity to respond, since the aunties chose that moment to make an entrance.

Each on their own, the aunties were formidable. In a group, they were a force of nature.

"We have a plan," Bea announced. "If it doesn't seem to work, Charlotte will go and get eight more."

"Eight more what?" Clary asked, while Charlie gave the spokesauntie an astonished look.

"A full first circle, Auntie Bea? Do you think that'll be necessary?"

Bea rounded in on the Bard, her hand raised to point an accusatory finger at her. "Do you think I would suggest any such thing if we didn't think it might be vital?" she asked, her tone dangerously cool. "This isn't a child's charm gone wrong. We're working with magic we don't know, against an enemy we don't know."

Charlie inclined her head, acknowledging the statement. "I stand corrected." It was amazing enough that Bea had deemed her worthy of an explanation. And of course collecting a full first circle would have been an emergency measure. Bea and Jane were keeping relationships between the first circles in Calgary and Darsden civil, but only barely so. There was a lot of competitiveness in there, and while the younger generations were keeping the family linked and in contact, it wasn't a secret that the Aunties would have been just as happy to branch out, as it had been done for generations before, sever ties, and be done with it.

She almost missed Bea's next words.

"Charlotte will be giving us a shield. There's no point to it if this just repeats at the next opportunity."

"That I can do," Charlie said. She would have liked to be _asked_ , but she decided to be generous, given Bea's earlier generosity to her. She certainly had plenty of shielding spells. All she needed to do was pick one. She unpacked her guitar.

"Where do you think you're going, Graham?" Carmen asked just as the man she'd addressed was slipping out of the apartment.

"Shop," he said. "Joe's downstairs with the twins and the shop. He'll need a hand."

"He'll manage," Carmen declared. "We need you up here. Someone's going to have to hold Jonathan in place for us. We're not enough to divide our attention to keep him down, and Jack's so helpfully decided to take a flight again instead of making himself useful."

That wasn't fair, and Charlie knew that Carmen knew it. Jack had flown off from the park to continue his quest for someone of the Court to question. He was making himself useful, and he'd had no way of knowing what was going on here.

She didn't bother to offer to call him.

Trisha, in the meantime, was shooing the two young women off of the sofa and expertly folding it apart to let it take on its other identity – that of a queen-sized bed.

"I don't need to be held down," Jace protested. "I really don't—"

"Yes, you do," Trisha, standing closest to him, snapped. "Have you ever been fishing and ended up with a hook in your hand? Any other kind of barb that needed to be cut out?"

Jace nodded, though not before she'd said the last. Charlie guessed that training injuries were much more likely than fishing accidents with this lot.

"Good." The auntie stepped back and took one of the chairs Gwen had moved from the table. "Then you know what you're in for. Because we're going to have to cut those out – metaphorically speaking, I admit, but it will not be a very pleasant metaphor."

Visibly collecting himself, Jace nodded. "I understand. I can stay in control. I know how to deal with pain."

Carmen was shaking her head.

Before she could say anything more, Alec stepped forward. "Let Graham go help Joe. I can do this."

He didn't wait for their confirmation, briskly clearing the distance between him and Jace, and slipping out of his sneakers before he moved in position and waited for Jace to join him.

"Fine." Jace glared at Carmen and Trisha in turn. "Anything else you want me to do? Undress?"

"If you like," Trisha said evenly.

Bea snorted. "Keep your clothes on. You'd only distract those two." She pointed back and forth between Carmen and Trisha.

Jace, not looking very comfortable with the idea of how exactly he might be distracting two ladies who had surely crossed the line of sixty-five, if not seventy, decided that the wisest course of action would be to simply do as told for a change.

Sliding backwards, he settled against Alec, leaning back into his adopted brother and _parabatai_. Much as he hated to admit it, it felt strangely comforting to be held like that when Alec crossed his arms in front of Jace's chest. He wasn't exerting any pressure yet, but was ready to let now-relaxed muscles go rigid and lock him down if Jace overestimated his own self-control.

"It will hurt less if you stay relaxed, Jonathan," Bea told him. "So try to stay calm as long as you can. Charlotte?"

Charlie nodded, indicating that she was ready. As if by silent agreement, Izzy and Clary moved over to the two men, sitting on the edge of the bed on either side. No one protested.

She played Jace's song first, picking up the threads he was shedding all over the room. She forced a soothing bend on the tune, calming, relaxing, toning down the aggression in it.

She could see Jace react to the music. His eyes drifted half closed, and he seemed to melt against Alec.

The tune changed, morphing into the shield Charlie had picked.

Allie had taken position behind Bea, one hand resting on the sitting woman's shoulder. She was feeding a steady stream of energy to her. As the family's anchor to the city, Allie had more power at her disposal than the rest of them taken together.

Bea spun the power into a shape they could use. Trisha refined it, stretching it thinner and sharpening the tip until it was razor-sharp and thin like a scalpel.

Gwen zeroed in on the latest barb and plunged the point into Jace, wielding their magic as if it actually were a blade, cutting around and angling it until the tether tore free and snapped, almost whip-like, through the vision of everyone who could see it.

Carmen plugged the hole, keeping bits of Jace from leaking.

Jace had inhaled sharply, but was otherwise bearing the discomfort calmly. Charlie feared that that would become harder as they neared the older hooks - the ones that had all but grown in and become part of him.

The second tether went. This one didn't snap back the way the first had. They'd caught the attention of whatever was at the other end of these lines. Like a tentacle controlled by what was attached to its other end, the line twisted, boomeranging and slamming back into Jace – though it was deflected harmlessly by the wall of sound Charlie had established.

By the time they'd reached number five, their enemy was fighting back. The remaining tethers were writhing, trying to dig in more deeply, thickening.

There was nothing relaxed about Jace anymore now. His fists were clenched by his sides as he fought to keep from flinching and jerking away from the touch.

They should have had at least one other in the mix, someone to counter that entity that had – for whatever reason – chosen to latch on to Jace.

His hand shot out, reflexively beating at something no one could see.

Izzy caught his arm and held on to it before he could connect with anything – or anyone.

Peggi moved from her position as observer, joining the family. She picked up a strand of power from Allie and, sketching charms as fast as her hands would go, set to keeping that increasingly unpleasant power that was beginning to press down on them out of the room. Nothing had better go wrong now, Charlie thought. Every Gale present was occupied, with no one left to step in in a pinch to help or at least pull them out of the working.

In direct comparison with the way the family had shifted easily, allowing the new power to seamlessly blend into their weave, the four young people formed a stark contrast in Charlie's perception, re-emphasizing her impression from earlier. Even together as they were now, they were separate, each of them essentially alone.

That was part of the problem, she thought.

Gale children, too, were shielded at a young age, protected by the love of parents, of older siblings, and a plethora of aunts and uncles and aunties. No matter how far they went from family, they always had a place to return to, and fit into, a spot kept free for them to slide into and belong in the unquestioning comfort and protection the family offered.

Charlie noticed that her tune was shifting, and she let it.

Between all of them, they had plenty of love to spare to cover four solitary nephilim, provided that they'd allow themselves to be covered. It may not have been, strictly speaking, her call to make, but she felt no resistance to the change from anyone in the room. Allie split off another tendril of power even, feeding it to Charlie to be spun into the music.

She let the tune close in on the four of them, settling on them like a blanket.

Jace was panting now, straining against Alec's hands while the two women leaned down on his arms to keep him from thrashing. They'd been drawing charms on him, but had stopped when they needed both hands so he wouldn't tear free.

Another thread snapped. Nine gone. Two to go.

The aunties were sweating from the exertion by now, except for Bea, who was _transpiring_.

Charlie didn't even know when she'd started to hum a second tune, adding to Peggi's wards and feeding power into the charms outside the apartment. She was hoping that they'd never face whatever they were currently pissing off without a full first circle, preferably backed by ritual.

Putting enough force behind it that a real knife might have snapped, Gwen levered out the last barb, drawing a sound from Jace that no human being should have been forced to make.

The moment it was free, Allie grabbed at every thread of loose power in the room. With an expression of pure fury, she hurled it after that last line as, nothing left to hold it and nothing left to guide it back to Jace, it tore off into the distance.

Some grim satisfaction filled Charlie at the thought of _that_ slamming home.

She let the music fade. The charm she'd played clung to the four of them, settling in place as if it were the most natural thing for it to do.

The four aunties looked older than they had, exhaustion clear on all their faces. Anyone who didn't know them might have thought they'd overtaxed themselves, but Charlie knew better. Soon, that fatigue would give way to the inevitable reaction any Gale had after excess power use. Joe and Daniel certainly had a busy night ahead of them. Carmen and Bea could draw lots which one of them got David. The other would surely find someone somewhere.

They'd have to make sure their guests weren't caught in it, though. If they were about to feel the same effect, they'd have to take care of that. Clary and Jace could probably handle it, but Alec and Izzy were siblings. Charlie couldn't help a grin. Cameron would not be happy if he was called in to help out. It was less than two weeks to ritual, and he was already complaining about how Jack wasn't pulling his share of the load, even though he and Charlie had stayed in third circle. Their union wasn't a fertile one, which had nothing to do with the dragon share of Jack's heritage, and everything with the state Charlie had put herself in saving the world.

She didn't regret it. Saving the world had been worth it.

Still, Jack remained half dragon, and in spite of his much improved control, his use in ritual was limited to her and Katie. No one else in third circle was able to handle the power that was Jack even when he restrained himself.

And as far as Alec was concerned…

That could turn into a problem, either right away or the next morning, provided that he did let one of them take care of him.

All in all, she mostly hoped that they'd been far enough outside of the bulk of the magic to avoid the effect.

Clary and Izzy had let go of Jace in the meantime, who had collapsed against Alec. He was still breathing heavily, his face wet and his hands trembling slightly.

The red-head reached out to stroke a lock of hair out of his face. "It's over now," she told him, half-turning to look at Charlie. "It is, isn't it?"

*

"Is he going to be okay?" Alec didn't think he should have needed that reassurance. Their _parabatai_ bond suggested that Jace, while sore and exhausted, had nothing wrong with him now that sleep wouldn't cure. But he hadn't felt any of what had been going on with him before, and while he understood why that was the case now, it didn't do anything to reassure him.

"And are you?" The Gales had been behaving oddly since they had finished their work.

The aunties had bounced back quickly enough, excused themselves with a curtness that bordered on being impolite, and filed out of the door, Peggi following them. Alec had heard them start to argue about whether Gwen could wait until Joe had driven the other three wherever they wanted to go.

Graham came back upstairs a few minutes later, saying something about Melissa taking the store.

Allie frowned at him. "I didn't call Mel."

"She was actually looking for the aunties and not extremely happy that they were just leaving," he said. "Who did you call?"

"Jen and Cassie, to babysit."

They hadn't said much else, though it didn't escape Alec's notice that they were keeping an uncharacteristically large distance from each other.

Charlie had disappeared for a short while and come back with dripping hair and looking not quite happy.

Two teenage girls walked in not long after that. They'd apparently collected Evan and Edward from the store and efficiently went about packing up some toys and snacks from the kitchen. They left again as quickly as they'd come, muttering something about a playground, the boys chattering excitedly as they followed.

Allie and Graham had disappeared after that.

Dinner had consisted of leftovers, eaten where people stood or sat. The Gales had still seemed distracted. It hadn't felt right to pry, though, so the nephilim had kept to themselves.

Things normalized slowly. Allie and Graham had disappeared again and reappeared seeming much like their normal selves, just in time to take over their older sons from the girls. Gwen and Joe popped in, apparently ravenous.

Charlie took the time to help them coax some more food into Jace. She'd offered him a lullaby then, much to Alec's amusement and Jace's shock. It must have been a very long time since someone had sung him to sleep. Actually, considering who had raised him when he'd been little, it was quite possible that no one had ever done that at all.

It put him out quickly enough, though, the lines of his face relaxing as he slipped into a deep sleep unnaturally fast.

Charlie remained sitting where she was when the music faded, watching them with an expression Alec couldn't place.

"He'll be better in the morning," she told him. "It may be a while before he's entirely alright."

"I'm not sure he's ever been entirely alright in all the time we've known him," Izzy mused. The look Clary gave her suggested that she'd just been thinking something very similar.

It still didn't feel right to pry to Alec, but it seemed worse to ignore that something was going on. "Are _you_ alright?"

Charlie's smile seemed a little forced. "I'll be fine. It's just that powerful magic affects us and we need to … convert … that power. And the stronger ones of us are feeling the approach of ritual already."

She said 'ritual' as if it were something he should be able to place. He couldn't, and he wasn’t sure it was a good time to ask. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he offered instead.

That drew a laugh from Charlie, full and deep, and leaving Alec wondering what he'd just said.

"Alec," she told him, amusement still sparkling in her eyes, "if I thought you knew what you'd just offered, I might be tempted to take you up on it. As it is, I'll have to decline, politely but firmly." She bit her lip, apparently trying to not give Alec the impression she was laughing at him. "Some things are just… better explained to those outside of the family before they become involved. If I didn't want to wait for Jack, I could have called my cousin Roland. Or Cameron even."

There was more to it. He had no doubt of that. She'd been watching them too closely. Alec knew when he was under scrutiny, and she had barely taken her attention off of them once since they'd finished the spell.

Jace shifted on the bed, distracting them for a moment. His sleeping mind must have slipped into a dream, and it wasn't an entirely pleasant one from the looks of it.

Clary leaned over, stroking his arm and whispering reassurances.

Why was it that something like this made him feel so much more helpless than facing a horde of demons ever could? Alec wondered.

The answer was clear, of course. They'd been prepared for facing hordes of demons. They knew what to do then.

He knew what to do then.

No one had ever prepared him for what to do when your brother had just narrowly escaped an unknown but almost certainly undesirable fate – after the reason it had even come that far had been that he hadn't dared confide in anyone about what was going on with him.

Well, maybe not the only reason, but it had certainly played a part.

He couldn't fault Jace for it. He thought that in his place, he probably wouldn't have said anything either.

No, that wasn't right. He would have talked to Magnus. He'd promised him that there would be no more secrets.

Thinking of Magnus stirred a pain of loss in Alec that he clamped down on as hard as he could. Magnus was not lost. He was out there, and they would get him. He'd be alright. They'd all be alright.

Turning to Charlie again as the person who came the closest to an expert in what to do with people who were hurting from things that couldn't be healed with an iratze – not a position that was particularly difficult to achieve given the company they were in right now –, he vaguely gestured in the direction of his _parabatai_.

"If he were your brother there… what would you do?"

Charlie took her time with the answer. Alec wondered if she was swallowing down a remark along the lines of 'if he were my brother, things wouldn't have progressed so far, because we don't keep people in fear of opening up to their family.'

"If he were my brother," she finally answered, "provided that it wasn't too close to ritual to be safe, I'd spend the night with him. Just be close, share strength, make sure he won't for a second think he's alone. And if they could, our sisters would probably be there, too, and if they couldn't then there'd be cousins."

"I'm not sure Jace would approve of that," Alec said. "Or Clary, for that matter."

"You might be surprised," Charlie told him. "But let's set up the other bed for you in any case. You'll need some place to sleep tonight."

*

_October 22 nd/23rd, 2016, night_

Alec wasn't sleeping well.

Actually, he wasn't sleeping at all. He was lying on the second converted sofa, studying the muted gleam of the charms all over the room.

Going by the sounds of shifting and turning from the other bed, shared by Clary and Jace, those two were finding it hard to get some good rest as well. Alec wondered if fresh air might help. Maybe he could slip outside and put in a bit of exercise, or at least a run around the block…

But he wasn't sure he wasn't going to trip some kind of alarm if he opened the doors at night. For all he knew, they were spelled to keep the children from wandering where they weren't supposed to. He hadn't thought to ask, and there were too many runes – charms – that he had never seen before floating around.

"Alec?" Clary said, her voice low, but sounding far too loud anyway in a room in which the only sounds had been their combined breaths and the creaking of the beds when someone moved.

"Yeah?" He didn't even consider the option of pretending he was asleep.

A Clary-shaped shadow raised itself on one elbow to look over at Alec. "I've been thinking."

He bit back a snarky remark that would have fit his mood much better than the non-committal sound he allowed himself to make.

"I don't think she was wrong."

He could have claimed he didn't know what she meant. There was a time when he surely would have. Today, things were different.

"Yeah. I don't think she was wrong either."

Shadow-Clary let herself sink back onto the bed. "There's space."

"Not very much of it," Alec remarked, without looking. He'd noticed how much space there was before they'd turned off the lights. In spite of it, he rolled out of bed and grabbed the pillow and duvet.

"If Jace tries to kill me for this in the morning, I'll expect you to stand between us and defend me," he told her, which drew a hesitant chuckle from Clary.

"Sure."

He'd been in love with Jace once. That had been before Magnus. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it hadn't even been three months. They'd had a non-talk about it, with Jace either not understanding or playing deliberately dense. In any case, he'd considered some kind of love between them a matter of course then. The love between brothers. The bond between _parabatai_. Jace didn't know that Alec had almost called off the ceremony back then, knowing he was feeling more for his adopted brother than he should, according to shadowhunter custom and _parabatai_ rules.

Since Magnus had shown up, that hadn't been an issue. Maybe it hadn't been immediate, but the development had come quickly enough.

He forced himself not to focus on Magnus now. They would find Magnus tomorrow.

If Jace, mostly asleep and with his guard down, flinched away from him or gave any kind of indication that this was too much closeness for him, he'd just go back to tossing and turning on the other bed.

Jace had one hand clasped around Clary's, his fingers closed tightly enough to look borderline uncomfortable. His other arm was thrown out across the free section of mattress.

Alec poked at it with one finger. "Move a bit, Jace," he said. "I don't need much space, but I do need a little."

To his surprise, Jace actually did move, giving Alec a spot that was just large enough to slide into without lying on the edge and spending the night in danger of falling off.

He had no experience with the casual sharing of beds, and it wasn't like Jace was really awake anyway. The safest course of action was probably to just lie there and do nothing other than be present…

Jace did a half turn, fitting his body against Alec's as if his brother were a wall between him and whatever was lurking in his dreams, giving all the shelter he needed. He hadn't let go of Clary's hand, and she'd moved with him, hugging him from behind now and resting the side of her face against his shoulder.

It was a strange experience, though far from as unpleasant as he'd expected. Alec made his body relax. "Good night, everyone."

"Good night, Alec," Clary told him. She sounded sleepy, her voice muffled because she was talking around Jace.

"Good night," a third voice echoed theirs, followed by what might have been the ghost of a relieved sigh.

The room was very silent after that.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

_October 23 rd, 2016_

The sounds of people starting to stir around the apartment woke Jace the next morning.

He still felt sore all over, as if he'd taken the beating of his life and been refused an iratze afterwards, but it was an immense improvement over the last night, when he'd felt like his body consisted of nothing but fresh knife wounds with a generous helping of hot pepper rubbed into them.

He thought he'd be able to convince himself that what he was feeling now was no physical pain, and he could actually force himself to get up and do things – such as take a shower, get dressed, have a quick breakfast and then set out with Alec and the others to find Magnus.

Luckily, if they could believe Charlie, they weren't in too much of a hurry.

After what he'd seen Charlie do with a guitar and some humming, he thought they'd probably better believe it when Charlie said something, too.

That was well enough, because Alec was still asleep, and Jace would have felt bad about waking him up. It was surprising enough that he was still there in the first place. Jace had been entirely willing to assume he'd dreamed everything between the time Charlie's music had sent him to sleep the first time the night before and the moment he'd just woken up.

Apparently he hadn't, though, and the one thing he found potentially more shocking than the degree of comfort he had drawn from having his _parabatai_ there by his side was that the effect seemed to be mutual.

Clary moved on his other side, her fingers slowly withdrawing from where they'd been entwined in his hair.

"Morning," he whispered without turning. While still quite content where he was, he realized quarters were too close to move much without shoving someone.

He felt her kiss against the back of his shoulder, her hand stroking his neck with a touch so light it felt like she was ready to pull away any moment if he seemed unhappy with it.

Instead, he leaned into the contact, stealing another few moments of comfort.

When had physical contact that was neither sex nor hand-to-hand combat started to feel so reassuring, rather than ridiculous and unpleasant?

A door opened and closed, and someone started moving around the kitchen area of the room, reminding him that they were actually sleeping in the living room, which was the central room of the apartment and used for other purposes…

The noise also woke up Alec, who opened his eyes with momentary confusion. It was only a second before he relaxed muscles gone tense from years of habit at the first feeling of surprise.

"You okay?" he asked in Jace's direction, still sounding a bit sleepy.

Jace nodded. "Mostly."

He shifted now, sitting up and pushing himself a little way towards the head end of the bed to get some space. He felt stiff, as if in addition to the beating he'd overdone training and forgotten to warm up properly before starting.

Maybe not all of the soreness was metaphysical after all. He didn't remember too much of the tail-end of yesterday's treatment, but he had a vague idea that he'd been fighting Alec's grip quite vehemently during those last minutes.

"I didn't hurt you last night – did I?" He asked, suddenly concerned.

Alec needed a moment to place the question. Shaking his head, he rolled off the edge of the bed and landed on his feet. "Nah. I had you safely enough. I think you have a me-shaped bruise, though." Running his hands through his hair and stretching briefly, he looked over to the kitchen area. "Can you use a hand? Jace and Clary can have the bathroom first if they want."

"Can you operate a coffee machine?" Graham's voice came from the kitchen.

Alec nodded, while Graham went on: "Don't worry about using up the hot water. There's always someone who can charm up more of it. Allie likes to put a soundproofing charm on the door when we're saving water."

The last was said so offhandedly that it took both Jace and Clary a moment to parse the statement, especially given the remark that had come just before.

Clary, a little faster than he, slid out of bed and held out a hand to Jace invitingly. "Right," she said. "Come on, Jace. Let's go save some water. That sounds like an awesome idea." The look on her face made her meaning clear enough, and Jace, wondering if his body was going to agree regarding the wisdom of that, forced his aching muscles into action to follow her.

"These people do take some getting used to," he muttered as they moved towards the door Alec pointed to.

*

"So what's the oldest cemetery in town?"

Several pairs of eyes turned towards Jace at the question, which seemed to have come out of nowhere, filling a moment's silence in the conversation over breakfast.

Graham expertly stopped one of his sons from grabbing a piece of toast from his plate while stabbing some bacon with the fork in his other hand. "That'd be St. Mary's," he said around a mouthful of food.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Auntie Gwen ordered briskly. "You're giving the boys ideas."

The other twin used a moment's lapse of attention to turn over his cup.

"I don't think anyone needs to give them ideas," Charlie commented. Righting the plastic vessel again, she whistled a charm at the spill.

With a nod of acknowledgment in her direction, Graham turned towards the blond nephilim. "St. Mary's," he repeated. "Though there's an older burial site that hasn't been in use since 1897. Why? Do you want to go hunt some undead?"

"Are there any undead in your cemeteries?" Jace asked, while Alec picked up the thread his friend had started to spin.

"Shadowhunters used to leave caches on weapons in churchyards, graveyards and the like. We might be able to find some weapons of our own style there. There's no shadowhunter presence in Calgary now, but that doesn't mean there's never been any."

Izzy's eyes had lit up at the prospect. "It wouldn't have done any good before because we'd need a stele to unlock the cache," she explained before anyone could ask. "But Jace can activate runes without one, so it'd be worth a try now."

"Sounds good." Graham dug in his pockets and, after a few moments, produced a car key that he tossed across the table at Jace. It had been his idea, after all. "Take my car. It has GPS."

Clary snatched the keys out of Jace's hand.

"The last time he tried to drive a mundane car, it ended up wrapped around a streetlight," she explained. "If anyone here's driving, I am."

The risk of losing Graham's car to a streetlight didn't seem to worry the Gales a great deal.

"It's charmed well," Allie told them. "Even a bad driver should be somewhat safe in it. Charlie's very thorough at charming cars."

Charlie laughed around a bit of pancake. "A habit you pick up when travelling with a band. Seems you can only either be a musician or a sensible driver."

"Yeah, well," Clary said, not letting go of the keys, "Jace isn't a bad driver, he's no kind of driver at all."

"That," Jace said. He was squinting at the food on his plate. "Say – is it me, or is there a stamina rune hiding in this thing?"

Izzy snickered, while Alec bit his lip to maintain a somewhat straight face. "Yesterday's experience says," he declared after a second, "there's probably a stamina rune in the pancake."

"Charm," Allie corrected. "We don't rune the pancakes."

*

The cemetery was easy enough to find. Clary parked the car alongside the street, fitting it into a space just barely large enough for it with a satisfied grin.

"I think one of these charms makes the car pull in its belly in close quarters," she commented as she got out and looked at how neatly the car was placed between two other vehicles.

"So charms work like runes?" Jace asked. "And they have ones that we don't know? Like Clary's new runes?"

They hadn't actually had a lot of opportunity to talk about these things the day before.

Alec nodded. "So it seems. Though apparently we also have a few runes they haven't seen before." He was watching Jace, who did his best to not move with the stiffness of aching muscles. He could feel the other man's soreness through their _parabatai_ bond, but if Jace was trying to not let it show, he wasn't going to give his friend away.

"They've been picking them up nicely, though," Izzy threw in. "The glamored pancakes were kind of epic." She recounted that incident for Jace and Clary's benefit.

"Which reminds me…" she added as she finished. Standing in the car's shadow and protected from sight, she traced the lines of her own glamor rune with a slightly wetted finger.

Alec followed suit. "I still can't believe this works. Do you think we could have 'charmed' open the cache?"

Jace's rune lit up. Apparently, he preferred his untraditional variation of the traditional way. "I wouldn't count on it," he decided as he fell into step next to Alec. "The cache would be deliberately set up so nothing but shadowhunter runes can open it."

"I wonder why they can use runes at all, even if they call them charms." Alec kept his voice down, though there were only very few people around who might have overheard them, and mundanes were generally good at ignoring any conversations they heard coming out of thin air.

They were walking down the path between two rows of graves now, looking for the oldest part of the cemetery.

"Maybe some shadowhunters left the shadowhunters and had children but over time forgot where they came from?" Clary suggested.

"Might explain the existence of runic magic among them, but not their other runes," Alec pointed out. "Also, whatever is going on with Charlie seems to be pretty unique. And what the aunties did with Jace last night looked more like warlock magic to me."

They started scanning the writing on the headstones more attentively as the dates of death got older. Last time, it had been an unusual inscription that had given them the clue.

"So are you suggesting we're dealing with some previously unknown downworlders?" Izzy's face lit up with a grin. "If you get me some of their blood and a microscope, I might be able to tell you more."

"Yeah." Alec pointed at an overgrown grave that looked like no one had taken care of it in ages. Had it been visible, someone would have surely done something about it a long time ago. "I have a hunch that getting some of their blood might be harder than finding a microscope."

He squinted at the top of the stone slab, trying to guess at what was below the masses of moss, dried and almost dead now that winter was coming close, but nevertheless obscuring sight. "Anyone know a weedkiller charm?"

"We should have brought one of the Gales," his sister determined with a scrutinizing look of her own. "Their Gray Book seems to be that much larger than our Gray Book. Step back."

They did as she said.

With a last glance around to ensure that they were in fact alone in this part of the graveyard, she sketched a heat rune into the growth.

Flames shot up, hot and bright, consuming the moss and dying when the stone beneath gave them no further nourishment. They left behind the clear outlines of an enkeli rune on the slab.

"Well done." Jace stepped closer again. His eyes lit up with a golden glow as he focused on the rune, sending angelic energy into it.

The design began to sparkle, glowing as if it, too, had been set on fire, before the heavy stone plate was released and slid aside easily at a careful push.

Instead of a coffin, this grave contained a box with an assortment of weapons.

Alec reached in, pulling out a bow and a quiver with arrows sporting gray fletching. They were somewhat different from the ones he usually used, definitely much older and long out of style, but he wasn't going to be picky now. They were also well enough preserved.

Izzy was already handing swords and daggers complete with sheaths to Clary and Jace.

*

Following the GPS to the other address Allie had given them before they'd set out led them further away from the shop and into an expensive-looking neighborhood. Here, the houses were spaced apart, each placed neatly in its own little garden with plenty of greenery.

Actually, most of those gardens weren't little.

Some of them had their own pools.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Jace asked as Clary pulled into the driveway.

"Quite," Izzy answered in her place, pointing at the car they were stopping next to. "There's the car Charlie used when we collected Alec."

The slightly battered pick-up looked somewhat out of place in a neighborhood where all the cars that were out were polished and shining in the sun.

They climbed the steps to the front door, which someone hadn't even bothered to close.

By the look of the charms inscribed on the threshold and around the frame, they probably didn't need to.

Alec carefully stepped over the one that reminded him of a rather powerful protection and followed up on the sudden urge to wipe his shoes on the foot mat. A glance down revealed another charm, almost hidden in the pattern of the floor. He didn't recognize the design, but given the effect he'd just experienced, he suspected it served to keep the entrance area clean.

The space behind the front door was a large entrance hall, tiled in what looked like white marble. A curving double stairwell led to an upper floor, while doors and arches on all sides opened the way into other ground-floor rooms.

Not wanting to intrude into someone's private quarters, especially not given the family's tendency to place runes in the most inconvenient locations, Alec decided to play things safe.

"Hello?" he called out, hoping that someone would come to collect them. "We were told to come here?"

He could hear steps from below as someone sprinted up another staircase.

"We're in the library." The stairs leading down were apparently concealed behind the ones that went the other way. Charlie stepped out from behind those to wave them deeper into the building. "Research."

"What is this place?" Alec asked as he followed her. He didn't know much about mundane living, but this building seemed furnished closer to institute standards. It didn't quite fit the impression they'd gotten off of the apartment above the store. Sure, it had been anything but shabby, but it still was an apartment set on top of a junk store that also specialized in magical artifacts. This looked more like a manor house that wouldn't have been amiss in the wealthier neighborhoods of Alicante.

Charlie pointed them downstairs. "This belonged to a sorcerer we took out a few years ago. We thought about selling it, but we're never quite sure we've removed all traces of his magic. Also, the basement's full of his artifacts, and we don't even know what half of them do. So we keep it, even if it's singularly inconveniently located."

"Also, it has a pool out back," Allie's voice came from below.

That sounded like a pretty powerful argument.

They descended the stairs into a large, open space carpeted in purple and gold. Bookshelves lined the walls. A quick survey showed that most of the titles were either arcane or deceptively harmless.

Languages ranged from plain English to French, Latin, Ancient Greek and various others that Alec didn't recognize. Some were written in letters that made his eyes hurt just from looking at them. He suspected Magnus would have enjoyed this library.

There were Gales in attendance – many of them.

"We're trying to piece together just exactly what it was they were trying to call with your breadcrumb trail," Charlie told them with a vague motion around the room. "Maybe that'll give us an idea of where they are keeping your missing friend."

"Okay." The nephilim had started to move along the bookshelves, browsing titles. The Institute had a large library, and they'd definitely seen a few of these titles before, but apparently a sorcerer's reading habits and the nephilim's approved reading didn't have too big an overlap. "Where should we start?"

"How about over there?" A man stepped out from behind one of the free-standing shelves, startling them. In contrast to the Gales, he was as dark-haired as the Lightwoods and missing the family resemblance everyone else seemed to share. He held out a hand to Alec. "Hi. I'm Uncle Tom. I take care of the cataloguing here."

"Allie's dad," Charlie threw in helpfully. "Gale by marriage. Lives in Ontario, but I bring him in on Sunday mornings and take him home after dinner because he's better than anyone else at getting order into books."

"And we have a lot of books to get into order here," Auntie Carmen, who was sharing a sofa with two of her colleagues, said without looking up from the one she was perusing. "Jonathon Samuel was not the most organized sorcerer I've ever met."

"Actually," Auntie Bea said, somewhat acerbically, "I think he was the only sorcerer you ever met."

"I still say the chaos was deliberate to make it harder for anyone else to find anything," Trisha, the third Auntie present, added with a sniff. "But sooner or later, Tomas will surely get through with ordering the books at least."

The books in the room, at least, seemed ordered enough to Alec. He'd been directed to a shelf that contained works on magical symbols and their uses.

Jace was already pulling out a leather-bound volume and holding it out to Alec, almost accusingly. "What is this doing here?"

Alec glanced down at it. Yes, that was indeed a book he was very familiar with. So were the other three, though Clary surely much less than the rest of them.

Coming over to see what they were talking about, Allie shrugged. "I don't think that'll do you much good," she commented. "That's just a collection of some basic charms."

"That's a copy of the Gray Book," Alec blurted out, not quite able to keep the annoyance from his voice. "There's nothing basic about it. Those are our runes."

"Great," Tomas said. He picked the book out of Jace's hands and snapped it open, showing them the ragged edge where someone had torn out a couple of pages inside. "Then maybe you could get us a copy of the bits that are missing."

"What? No. That—We can't. That's just for…" Alec trailed off, realizing that saying the Gray Book was only for nephilim use was somewhat ridiculous, considering how these people were throwing their runes about. "Let's discuss that later."

Tomas slipped the book back onto its shelf and picked out three other tomes instead that he shoved into Jace's hands. "Try these."

There were several small tables in the room, but every single one of them was already occupied.

The largest unused piece of furniture was a piano placed regally at the center of the open space between the shelves. This room had once clearly been intended to entertain guests in style.

That changed nothing about the fact that a piano didn't make the best surface for reading on.

Not wanting to squeeze between groups of family, the four decided to follow the example of Katie and a male Gale in dark jeans and a sweater vest who looked very out of place sitting on the floor with a book and a notepad.

He looked around at them as they arranged themselves on a free piece of carpet.

"This is Roland," Katie took over introductions. "The family lawyer. Roland – Izzy, Alec, and I assume these two are Clary and Jace, who were still missing when I met the other two."

"You're pretty good at remembering names," Izzy observed, which drew a laugh from Katie.

"Big family, plenty of practice."

"What are you researching?" Jace asked, trying to get a glimpse of Roland's book. "Demon contracts?"

Roland gave him a broad grin. "Demon lures, actually. If we knew what you were supposed to attract, we might have a place to start looking…"

Katie turned a page and scanned the words, clearly reading rather diagonally while looking for specific word patterns. "We're not even sure we're looking for a demon as such," she pointed out. "But we have to start with something…"

Clary had settled cross-legged on the purple carpet and flipped a book open to the table of contents to decide where to start reading. The others were about to follow her example, but didn't get very far.

A pillow entered the room at high velocity, colliding with Charlie, who was standing in front of a bookcase and moving her finger along the spines as if looking for a specific title. The soft projectile was followed by a group of children, the youngest four or five and the older ones just into their teens, swinging more of the same and apparently practicing their attack and defense skills.

Charlie tossed the pillow back without comment, hitting one of the oldest boys squarely in the face with it.

"Is this how you behave in a library?" Auntie Carmen admonished them without as much as looking up.

One of the girls giggled. "No," she said. "This is how I behave at home."

Two women who were occupying a table together, paper notes and books spread between them, raised their heads as one. "Lyla." They didn't look or sound particularly upset, though. One of them glanced over at Roland, who didn't seem to plan on getting involved at all.

"Roland." She said after another moment. That sounded like an order.

Roland sighed. "Leave them be, Nana," he said in Carmen's direction. "Watching us do research is boring for the kids."

Carmen shook her head mutely, and even her silence said: _This would never have happened when I was your age_.

The Gale family lawyer returned to his book. Katie took pity on the four nephilim. "Our Auntie Carmen is Roland's grandmother," she told them. "Rayne and Lucy are Lyla's mothers and Roland is her father. They live in this house together. Rayne, Lucy, Roland and Lyla, that is. Auntie Carmen lives by the park along with the other aunties. Except for Gwen, who lives in the studio apartment by the store."

"It's big for three people and a child," Izzy observed.

Roland nodded. "It's very out of the way for us, but someone had to take care of it. Everyone else has bought property along the park, and we've got a few spare buildings that we kind of accidentally bought last year. But this is a pretty nice neighborhood for Lyla to grow up in."

"How do you accidentally buy houses?" Clary asked. She didn't know too much about buying real estate, but for all that she did know, it was a pretty involved process.

Turning another page, Katie did her best to look entirely innocent.

"Well." Roland shifted to get more comfortable where he was sitting and put his book aside for the moment. "There was a situation where we were preparing for the potential end of the world – which never happened – and we thought we'd have to relocate a lot of family here to protect them. And Katie's a real estate agent, so obviously we bought some buildings in a convenient location to start on the relocating."

"Then Jack blew up the asteroid and the big boom never happened, but now we have property." Charlie had come over. "It's not like we won't fill it up quickly enough. Katie could have sold them again, but the aunties were strictly against that. Not now that we already have them, so close to where David is."

"David who is not a pet stag after all," Izzy noted.

Roland rubbed at a scar on his face that didn't look very lawyer-like at all. "Let's say he's not a pet," he suggested. "I wouldn't dispute the rest."

Before they could ask any more questions, a very discordant string of sounds came from the piano. The children had given up their pillow fight and were tormenting the instrument now.

Jace flinched visibly at the attack on his ears.

"We should throw that thing out," Auntie Bea suggested. "Unless anyone here actually intends to pick up piano-playing skills."

"Don't look at me," Charlie shot back. "I'm more of a guitar person. I like my instruments portable. Can't carry a grand piano through the Wood with me after all."

"I'm a master pianist," one of the children announced, pressing down random keys, most of them at the same time and long enough to make the piano sound like it was experiencing physical pain from the treatment. "I'm playing Bach!"

Jace groaned. "That sounds _nothing_ like Bach."

"Oh?" the boy at the piano shot back. "Can you do any better?"

The blond nephilim sighed, rose to his feet and walked through the room, making a shooing motion as he neared the instrument.

"Give me some space," he said. "Let's see if I can."

He slid onto the chair and, under the watchful eyes of several children and the expectant ears of everyone present, started to play.

There was no doubt that he knew what he was doing. No one was complaining now, though people were returning to their research and the conversations that had previously been going on gave way to the music that filled the room.

As the last notes faded into silence, Jace pushed back his chair to rise and return to his friends.

"Keep playing," Auntie Bea told him. Her tone made it an order. "That's much better than the children hijacking that thing again."

"Shouldn't I be helping with the research?" Jace asked her, though he did settle back down.

Bea made a vague motion around the room. "I would say there are plenty enough people doing research. While you're playing they're wasting a lot less time on talking and spend more time on reading. It's much more efficient. Maybe we should keep you."

"You can't keep him." Alec didn't sound amused. "We definitely need him at home."

"He could teach us!" The boy who had previously tried to wrestle the piano into submission piped up. "Could you teach us?"

"Uh…" Jace didn't seem very confident in his own abilities as a music teacher. "I don't think you'd like the teaching methods that … the man who raised me used on me, and I don't know any others."

"Just let him play now, Richard," the Auntie cut in. "Discuss music lessons another time."

Richard muttered something that was not entirely age-appropriate, and Jace started into a new tune just fast enough to cover up the last third of it.

He was still playing when the sounds of a pair of footsteps coming down the stairs again announced another two additions to their group. One of those two was moving with a lot more confidence than the other.

"Melissa." Auntie Bea's voice was as sharp as a sword, and she rose in a rustle of fabric that was louder than clothes had any right to be. "What is that?"

Melissa grabbed the arm of her companion who, though visibly making an effort at looking uncowed, seemed torn between drawing a dagger and running for his life.

"Well." Charlie came over, her head cocked sideways as she studied the newcomer. "Do you know Jack's been looking all over Calgary for you?"

"What? No. What does the Wyrm want with us _again?_ " Melissa's guest bristled at the concept of Jack trying to find him. He was tall and lean, with dark hair combed back from his face and wearing a jacket with the insignia of the University's basketball team.

"Names," Melissa cautioned. Her voice had also acquired an edge now, though it was only a very small one by comparison to the Auntie's.

"What does _Jack_ want with me?" The young man by her side repeated. "It's not like I was hiding. I had something to take care of at home, and then I was at Melissa's place… He could have just called."

"What is one of the Court doing at Melissa's place?" Auntie Bea asked. Her two fellow aunties had also risen to their feet. "And why, Melissa Andrea Gale, do you bring a Court into one of our homes?"

"I have a name, too, you know," the young man announced, though his bravado wasn't feeling quite real. Whatever a Court was, he had more than a healthy dose of respect for the aunties.

Melissa drew a deep breath. "We were studying," she said. "For classes, you know. Homework. Then he spent the night. I was going to talk to you about that last night, but you were suddenly very busy. We came here because you said to come if we didn't have anything more pressing to do."

"Studying." Given the amount of acid dripping from Bea's tone, she probably thought that that was the university attendants' equivalent of 'saving water'.

Given the look on the Court's face and the somewhat possessive posture Melissa took by his side, she was probably right in that assumption.

"That message was for you," Carmen pointed out. "Not the Court."

"Elessar can help," Melissa declared. "You realize they're not _only_ playing basketball, right?"

"Actually, most of us are," Elessar admitted.

"You're not helping!" Melissa hissed in his direction.

"He can't exactly lie," Auntie Trisha pointed out.

"He doesn't need to comment on everything I say," Melissa shot back. "That's not lying."

"He's standing right here," Elessar reminded them. "Look, I can go. I didn't think this was a great idea to begin with anyway."

Melissa shook her head once, decisively. "No. Our aunties aren't going to chase you off that easily."

"May I remind you that the family does not deal with the Fey, Melissa?" Auntie Bea's tone lay somewhere between frustrated, annoyed and resigned to being ignored.

"May I remind you that Auntie Gwen married a Leprechaun and I have a cousin who is also a Dragon?" Melissa said sweetly. "Times change. We have some classes together. He comes by my place afterwards to do homework. Sometimes he stays the night. Sometimes it's time for traditions to change."

"May I—" Whatever she had been about to reply, Auntie Bea swallowed most of it.

Elessar had started to let his glamor slip, apparently deciding that it was safer not to be limited to a human seeming in the presence of so many assorted Gales. Beneath, his face was humanoid, but not quite passing as a mortal. The angles of his features were too sharp, meeting in ways that looked slightly wrong.

"Isabelle, do you remember what you told us about the place you were kept in after you were kidnapped?"

Izzy looked around at her. "It was pretty extravagantly furnished, but there wasn't anything to pinpoint where it was. Also, I was still kind of out from the stuff they'd used to knock us out. It all looked kind of weird to me."

"Kind of." Bea repeated drily. "I assure you, it didn't just _look_ kind of weird. I think I know where you were kept now."

Several pairs of eyes went back and forth between Bea and Elessar, who fell into a more defensive stance.

"Neither I nor anyone involved with the Court had any hand in kidnapping these people," he declared. "And neither are we hiding any of them."

"I believe you," Bea told him.

Surprise registered on his face, as if that wasn't something he had expected at all.

"But they weren't abducted from Calgary. They were taken from New York. Which Court controls the gates to New York?"

Elessar considered for a moment, before pulling out something that looked deceptively like a smartphone. "I need to check. I don't exactly have every single gate memorized."

He tapped and wiped at the screen.

Alec, finally able to place what they meant by "Court", favored him with a dark frown. "Since when do Seelie use phones?"

"Since they started attending the University of Alberta," Elessar said distractedly. "It's less noticeable than most other ways of communication." He looked up from the screen and at Alec. "What are you anyway?"

"Shadowhunter," Alec supplied.

Elessar snorted. "Wrong place for you here. The Gales are possessive of their ground."

"We're not trying to establish an institute here. We're trying to save our friend." The light shining in Alec's eyes made him look nearly as dangerous as the aunties for a moment.

"Good luck with that." Elessar turned his phone around to show them the page he'd pulled up. The writing was no script or language they could read, but the portrait in the upper right corner was unmistakable for the four. "The queen who holds the New York Gates is… how do you say? Batshit crazy?"

The piano made an uncoordinated sound as Jace, still sitting in front of it even though he had interrupted his music, leaned down on the keys, trying not to laugh out loud.


	10. Chapter 10

Charlie was packing.

A trip into the Underrealm was somewhat more complicated than a quick hop into the Wood. It was better to be prepared, and not only because Jack's uncles and mother were probably all still pretty pissed at what they'd done to keep their world safe from them.

They had the vestiges of a plan, though they were very much aware that they would have to do most of their planning on the spot. There were few people less predictable than those who habitually lived in that specific place.

At least it wasn't going to get boring.

The four nephilim were packed up quickly enough. It wasn't like they had a lot to pack, other than their newly retrieved weapons.

"How are we even going to get in there?" Clary asked as Charlie emerged into the apartment's living room, her backpack shouldered and guitar case in hand.

"Gate?" Charlie said. It should have been obvious, really. "Jack will open one for us."

"We're kind of banned," Clary told her.

The bard stopped in her tracks. "You're what? How'd that happen?"

"Long story," Alec warned, but Clary was already summarizing.

"Basically, she kidnapped my best friend and then closed her entrances to us so we couldn't come and free him."

Alec adjusted the fit of his quiver once again. "Technically, we think she tricked him into agreeing to stay at her court by threatening people important to him. But it's true that we haven't been able to use any of the entrances in New York."

"In which 'she' is the queen Elessar says is bat-shit crazy?" Charlie clarified.

The nephilim nodded. There wasn't going to be any kind of challenge regarding that specific, though entirely unscientific, psych-evaluation from them.

Jack was lounging in the armchair as if it were absolutely no concern of his. "She doesn't control my gates," he drawled. "I promise you, you'll be in and out through them safely enough."

"What are we waiting for, exactly?" Alec asked. He was looking at each of them in turn. His friends looked about as ready for battle as they ever did, and Charlie had her best weapon by her side. Jack made no move.

"Graham and Michael," Charlie told him.

"Wait, what?" Alec didn't seem quite certain he had heard right. "Michael's one of your mundanes, right? We can't take a mundane!"

The Bard leaned into the door frame and made herself comfortable there. "Technically speaking," she said, "Graham is a 'mundane', too, though being the seventh son of a seventh son has some perks. But yes, we'll be taking Michael. Trust me on this one – sometimes it's a good idea to have a non-combatant along."

"It's dangerous!" Alec protested. There was quite a bit of vehemence in his voice.

"He knows." That was all Charlie was apparently willing to say on the matter.

Alec sighed. "At which point did we decide to not go with the back through time in the Wood thing?" The 'we' in that was relative. Once the aunties had been convinced they had a lead, the mission had been put together fast enough to make Alec's head spin. The aunties, apparently, were not very susceptible to advice or sharing once they started plotting. He suspected the only reason Charlie had gotten in a word edgewise now and then had been because she could pitch her voice in a way that made everyone else fall silent.

Still, there'd been a lot of subtext going on that he couldn't place at all, vague references to things the four of them had been no part of. He hated that feeling of being left out of the loop, but Bea's only reaction to his complaint had been asking him if he'd prefer to sit out the days it would take for them to fill him in on all the details of the last few times they'd dealt with the Underrealm.

He barely managed to keep himself from pointing out they'd just claimed they didn't do that at all a few minutes ago.

Charlie tapped her foot, though not impatiently but rather as if in time to a tune only she could hear. "We can still do that, but we're going to attract a lot more attention that way. If we're trying to go in, grab your man and get out again with as little violence as possible, it's best to avoid drawing attention. Jack comes from the Underrealm. Him opening a Gate there won't be as noticeable."

"But what if he's already…" Alec hesitated. He couldn't say the word 'dead'. "Gone?"

"If I can't find his Song once we're there, we are clearly going to leave the Underrealm, go into the Wood, jump back a few hours or half a day and grab him from there," Charlie pointed out, as if that was the most logical thing in the world. "And since we'll already know that we managed to get him, it should be all the safer for us."

Alec blinked. Time was not meant to be talked about like that.

"Have you ever considered inventing a few more grammatical tenses when you talk about time travel?" Michael and Graham came into the room together, both outfitted for their expedition. Graham carried his rifle.

"You're going to take _that_ into the Seelie Realm?" Izzy sounded shocked. "They'll kill you."

"Actually," Graham answered with a grin, "the idea is to prevent exactly that."

The Gales' idea of a trip into the Seelie Realm – or the Underrealm, as they called it – seemed quite different from that of the nephilim. Still, considering that they were their best shot for getting inside, there wasn't much of a point in arguing.

Jack got up and stretched. "I'll meet you at the park," he said, already heading for the door. "I'll scout ahead briefly and make sure none of my uncles is lurking by the entrance. They'd probably eat you."

*

Jack's Gate only had a marginal resemblance to the portals they knew from home. It was rather like a void appearing anchored between a group of rock formations.

None of the Gales hesitated to step through, though, and neither did the mundane. With a glance at each other, the nephilim followed.

Jack jumped through after them.

The Seelie Realm looked much the same from Calgary as it did from New York, though the season was warmer here and the woods were less dense. The area they'd arrived in was large enough to be called a meadow rather than a clearing even.

"There we are," Jack announced, stating the obvious. "What do you say? Do we need to set up another Gate to get closer, or is it walkable already?" He looked at Charlie as he spoke.

She stood, her eyes closed, listening.

"Do you need us to do anything?" Alec asked, remembering how she'd wanted them to focus on Magnus the other day.

Charlie shook her head. "I picked up his Song yesterday. I can find it again and follow it now. There's just a lot of interference here. I might need an amplifier."

"How's that?" Alec couldn't help but listen, too, but all that he could hear were the sounds from the nearby forest edge and the wind moving around them.

The bard unpacked her guitar and settled the strap over her shoulder. "I think I have a song for that," she told him. "Jack, we'll try on foot. If it turns out to be too far, we'll come back for another Gate."

Jack nodded at her. "I'll be here."

"Wait." Jace stepped forward, stopping Charlie from walking anywhere just yet. "Jack isn't going to come?"

"Nope." Jack settled on a rock where the void had been a few moments ago. "I'll be guarding my Gate. See… One: one or several of my uncles might drop by to see what I'm doing back here. They'd be kind of surprised because they expect me to be twenty years younger than I am, but that probably won't keep them from trying to eat me."

Jace's expression alternated between confused and shocked.

Jack ignored that. "Two: I have a _presence_ in the Underrealm. Coming with you would draw undue attention. You're trying to sneak into someone's backyard, remember? Three: If something goes wrong, Charlie knows how to call me to her. Anywhere you can walk, I can fly faster, so don't worry about lack of backup."

Nodding in Jack's direction, Alec reached out for Jace's arm, pulling him out of Charlie's way. "Let's go, Jace. Magnus is waiting."

Graham and Michael had arranged themselves behind Charlie. Without waiting for anything else, she started to play.

Alec felt the music tug on his soul. She was playing his love for Magnus, somehow, teasing a thread from the core of his self and turning it into something more solid. He could feel it like a string running off into the distance.

That string solidified to his senses, becoming durable and hard like a robust rope made to hold things together permanently. She wasn't creating it, he realized. She was only making what was there already more easily perceptible.

He started walking at the same time she did, following the same lead she was.

*

They skirted the edge of the forest, turning away from the tree line and crossing a series of rolling hills. Alec couldn't tell how long they'd been marching, but at least the mundane was keeping up nicely. He still had no idea what they'd brought him for.

Charlie had rotated through her song a couple of times already. The pull increased with every rerun, though Alec wasn't sure if that was because they were drawing closer or because she was renewing her spell – or whatever her music was called – with every reiteration.

There had been no creatures so far that were larger than birds or insects, and they'd been carefully avoiding killing even the mosquitoes that were trying to sneak a taste of their blood. Killing anything in the Seelie Realm generally was a very bad idea.

The Gale portion of their mission seemed to have far fewer problems with the insects.

"How do you do it?" Izzy asked Graham after a while, waving her hand to keep a particularly stubborn mosquito from settling on her. "They seem to like us so much more than they do you."

With a grin, Graham pulled back his sleeve and pointed at a design sketched on his forearm. "Insect-repellent charm," he said. "What else?"

Izzy groaned. What else indeed.

Alec watched her study the inside of her forearm to pick a convenient spot and copy out the design there. The lines on her skin sparkled just a little, looking like barely more than sun reflected off a thin sheen of sweat.

His sister gave a relieved sigh and let her hands drop, however. "That's better."

Clary and Jace moved to catch up with her and get a copy of the charm. Alec, though hating the distraction from his focus on Magnus, followed suit.

It felt weird to draw a design that wasn't from the Gray Book and that wasn't among the runes that they had learned in their training. Even though he'd just seen it work, he half expected it to fail when he himself tried it. This just wasn't how runes worked.

But apparently it was how charms worked, and he breathed a sigh of relief of his own as the assault on his veins ceased immediately. Committing the lines to memory, he returned all of his focus to Magnus.

They crested another ridge, and found themselves looking down at the first man-made structure they'd seen since their arrival.

Admittedly, "man-made" was probably not quite the right term. Seelie-made was more likely.

Charlie stopped the strings of her guitar from vibrating with a hand on them and listened.

"No songs but ours and Magnus'," she announced after a moment. "Whoever that cottage belongs to, they're not here. Doesn't mean we will be safe barging in."

Pulling an arrow from his quiver, Alec readied his bow. Jace drew his sword at the same time. The two women were ready an instant later.

Graham did something with his rifle that Alec assumed was the counterpart of nocking an arrow.

Guitar held ready to play at need, Charlie started moving forward, still listening and turning her head back and forth to take in as much of their surroundings as possible.

They reached the entrance without incident.

Inside, the cottage was bare, save for a number of runes inscribed on the walls. They weren't any kind that Alec had ever seen before. He would have assumed they were demonic runes, but, remembering the anti-insect charm now placed just below the Angelic Power rune on his arm, he gave them the benefit of a doubt. They might have been charms.

Both Graham and Charlie stopped for a moment to study them.

"Containment, protection, binding," Charlie said. "Something's definitely meant to be kept in here."

"Is this going to be a problem?" Alec asked. "We're inside already, in case you haven't noticed…" It had just occurred to him that it might have been a good idea to check the inside of the room before stepping through the door, though he wasn't entirely sure how they would have done that.

Charlie shrugged. "These aren't the kind we can't deactivate." She walked up to one and swiped her hand over the design in a complex pattern that looked like she was trying to rub a stain into the wall.

The lines grew blurry and dissolved.

"See? If we want them all gone at once, this is within the range of what my deactivation chord can handle. Our ears are going to hate us for that, though." She pointed at the only door leading out of the room and deeper into the building. "Let's try that."

There was another room, not unlike the first. This one had a narrow stair running through a hatch into a lower level, and two more doors in the wall opposite them.

Alec frowned at them. The building must have been larger on the inside than it was on the outside if there was another room fitted on this floor – let alone two.

Izzy had walked past him, her sword held ready, and glanced through the openings.

"Here." She sounded satisfied, rather than surprised. "This is the place."

Joining his sister, Alec took in a room that had held some furniture until recently. Discolored rectangles on the wooden floor showed where things had been placed before. It had been cleared out, save for a set of cots complete with shackles. So that was where they'd been put to await their further destiny?

"There's some stuff here," Michael announced. He had been looking into the other room.

Alec only barely registered Graham moving past him to join the mundane. The pull of the tie that connected him to Magnus drew him away from the doorway again. He nodded towards the stairs. "Down, I think."

Down they went, guarding each other as far as they could on the narrow steps. The basement was a dark room, smelling of earth and blood and feeling somewhat oppressive.

"Magnus?" Alec said into the darkness. Even though he didn't expect a response, considering how Clary and Jace had been found, he strained his ears.

He thought he heard a scratch, or rasp – some kind of sound not made by a creaking floor board or settling timbers.

"Light. We need light!" he called out, just seconds before the brightest daylight flooded the room.

Charlie stepped away from the wall, on which she had just scratched a charm that was the twin of Clary's sunlight rune.

Blinking away spots from his eyes, Alec saw Magnus before he could register anything else.

Reacting without thinking, he let his bow and arrow drop to jump towards the figure on the ground – only to be caught by Jace's unyielding embrace.

"Don't step into those runes," his _parabatai_ hissed into his ear, his hands tightening on Alec. "There's a lot more of them than there was around any of us on Graham's photos."

It was true, though Alec barely cared.

Magnus was lying on the ground, tied down spread-eagled at the center of an intricate design. The floor boards around him were stained a dark reddish-brown. There was no question where the smell of blood had come from.

The warlock's eyes were squeezed shut against the glare of the light, but Alec could see with a terrible clarity that Magnus was showing far more reaction than any of them had. He wasn't frozen in place.

Charlie's hands moved on her strings, finding and plucking that one chord that made their ears ring and scream with the discordance of it.

"Shouldn't you have let Graham take pictures first?"

Alec wanted to scream at his sister for suggesting that, though in some corner of his mind, he understood the wisdom of her question. Jace's hold on him had relaxed as the notes had faded, though, and he pulled away from his brother, almost leaping to Magnus' side. He whipped out his dagger while he was still dropping to his knees to get at the ties that held the other man.

There were two things he noticed as he sawed at the first of them:

Charlie's chord hadn't only removed the circle enclosing Magnus. Alec had a truly rare sight in front of him now: His Magnus, but without the glitter, without any trace of make-up or special hairstyle – He wasn't sure he had ever seen Magnus so truly bare before.

The other—

"His hands." It came out almost as a sob.

The blood around the warlock must have come from somewhere, of course. Realizing the precise source, however, was an entirely different kind of horror.

Magnus' hands, usually perfectly manicured and ornamented with painted fingernails and rings, looked like barely more than bloody, swollen flesh now. Deep cuts ran across his palms and the insides of his fingers, with one last horizontal, gaping cut across each wrist – deep enough to show a glimpse of white that had to be bone.

There was one more thing – the only thing remotely magical remaining in the path of Charlie's counterspell: a design like a complex rune carved into Magnus' right forearm, still leaking drops of blood.

Magnus was blinking into the light now, his eyelids lifting gradually until he could look at his rescuer through the lashes, protecting himself from the light as much as he could without losing sight of him.

"Can you shade the light a bit?" Alec asked over his shoulder. "He's been kept in the dark."

Charlie played two notes that worked like a dimmer. They could still see, but the glare had lessened.

Putting down her guitar, she dropped next to Alec and pulled off her backpack.

Alec moved away, shifting their position until he had Magnus' head in his lap and was stroking his partner's hair.

"You'll be fine, Magnus. We've got you now. We'll have you out of here in no time." He was babbling, and he knew it. He wasn't sure he even believed the words he was saying. Magnus relied on his magic. It wasn't just the big things. He had so much of it. He used it casually throughout the day, doing little tasks without even thinking about it.

Magnus used his hands to shape and control his magic. Just holding down his arms could deprive him of his defenses or keep him from attacking.

Their captors must have known that.

Alec felt a tear run down his cheek at the thought of what would happen if those cuts had been made with a seraph blade – wounds that demon magic – warlock magic – couldn't heal.

Charlie had pulled out a first-aid kit and started to put squares of white against the cuts, securing them with a wrapping of bandages. "We'll take care of this later," she said, her voice pitched to be reassuring. Alec felt his heartbeat calm as he listened to her. "Right now, we need to make sure we don't leave a blood trail across the Underrealm on the way back."

Magnus groaned at the touch and the jostling of his injured hands. His lips parted, trying to form words.

Leaning down close to him, Alec kept his voice almost to a whisper. "Save your strength, Magnus. There'll be time when we're out of here. You won't believe the things that have happened…"

Magnus' breathing steadied slowly as Alec continued to stroke his hair.

Izzy crouched down by them, the upended cap of a thermos they'd brought filled with fresh water in her hands.

As gently as he could, Alec raised Magnus up a little more, making it easier to let the water drip into his mouth rather than down his chin.

"There's chalk in the backpack," Charlie said, speaking to no one in particular. "I need you to go and draw a circle around this cottage. Make it as round as you can and make sure there are no gaps."

"We'll be just a minute," Jace promised, rummaging in the pack already and coming up with two pieces of colored chalk. He tossed one to Clary and, without asking what Charlie needed the circle for, sped up the stairs.

Alec had closed his eyes, focusing entirely on how Magnus felt against him, feeling his heartbeat and listening to his breaths. He matched his own breathing to Magnus'.

There'd been that time when Magnus had borrowed some of Alec's strength for his magic. Never before had Alec wished so badly to be able to initiate that kind of sharing. Magnus shifted against him, but his movements were so weak he couldn't even tell if they were deliberate.

He tried hard not to think of the amount of blood spread around them.

How much blood could a warlock lose without dying of it?

The first-aid kit stowed in the backpack again, Charlie undid the straps that held the rolled-up blanket to wrap it around Magnus. Izzy gave her a hand so Alec didn't have to give up his position.

"Michael?" the Bard called upstairs while they were working. "We need you here."

Not needing to secure the path the way they had, the mundane came racing down the steps, taking them two and three at a time. Alec looked up at him and, for the first time, realized just how tall and powerfully built the man was.

"There's no way Magnus can walk," Charlie pointed out the obvious. "Can you--?"

"Yeah." Michael knelt down by Magnus' side. He touched the warlock's shoulder with one large hand. "Hi Magnus. I'm Michael – I'm your ride today. I'll make it as smooth as I can."

"Thank you for offering." Alec barely resisted the urge to push the older man's hand away. "But I can carry Magnus."

"No, you can't," Charlie told him in a voice that left no room for argument. "Not and use your bow at the same time. You think we can get out of here unchallenged? We'll need your firepower. Michael will take Magnus."

Alec bit his lip as he mulled that over. She had a point. Still…

"He's a mundane." He gave Michael an apologetic glance. "I'm sorry – I mean – you won't be able to give him any protection at all."

Michael didn't seem offended. He shifted his hand to Alec's arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "No one carrying Magnus would be able to fight at the same time. I'm marked with protections from two lines of the Gale family. Nothing remotely in its right mind is going to attack me and risk their collective wrath. That's why you brought me along."

"That, and if the charms fail then there's still this innate thing Michael has where nothing and no one _wants_ to fight him. He'll buy us time at least," Charlie added.

"I didn't even know there was such a thing," Alec admitted. He was still holding Magnus tightly. "Magnus, is it okay if Michael takes over?"

Magnus' nod was more something that Alec felt against his body than something he could see. He sent a nod of his own in Michael's direction.

"It's one reason the aunties would have loved to breed Michael into our family," Charlie explained, speaking more casually than anyone should have when using that particular word in reference to people. "Michael's preferences put an end to those ideas, but they still love him."

"His preferences don't run to Gales?" Alec asked. He released Magnus into the other man's arms and watched as Michael rose, balancing his precious burden.

"My preferences don't run to women," Michael clarified. "Brian's my husband. You met him at the apartment."

"Oh." One of Magnus' arms had slipped sideways and was dangling down. Alec reached out and, carefully putting as little pressure on the bandages as he could, gently laid that arm across the injured man's body.

Then he stooped to pick up his weapon and fit the arrow back to the string. He was going to be ready the moment they stepped outside. "What are you doing?"

The last was directed at Charlie, who was sketching patterns into the blood stains on the ground. They seemed to sizzle a little.

"There are too many traces of him here," Charlie said. "All this blood – blood magic is a powerful thing. We don't know how much of the four of you is left upstairs, but we can't leave this place as it is. I'll trigger these charms to go off when we're all outside."

Izzy had her sword out and ready again and automatically moved into position to bring up the rear. Alec, the archer, would need a clear line of fire and was better off taking point.

He hated turning his back on Magnus. Still, he forced himself to pivot and walk up the stairs.

Graham was standing ready by the entrance door, his rifle looking almost like an addition to his body. Alec had never shot a firearm – gunpowder, as well as its modern replacements, and runes didn't mix very well. Firearms and charms seemed to have no such problem. They were written all over the weapon. He noticed there didn't seem to be one for accuracy. Now, wasn't that odd?

This surely wasn't the right time to think about that.

Jace and Clary were walking towards them, their circle finished.

"Okay." Charlie decided, running through the strings of her guitar to make sure of her tuning. She did that a lot, Alec thought. "Let's get outside that circle so the party can begin. Don't step on the line."

They followed her directions, falling into step around Michael, all weapons held ready.

Charlie called them to a halt as soon as they reached the first ridge.

Turning to look back at the building they had just left, she started playing a lively tune on her guitar.

For a moment, it seemed that nothing had happened. Then small tongues of flame sprang up around the marked circle, growing as they fed on the grass inside.

They spread, covering the ground around the house and making it impossible for anyone to enter now without getting burned.

Her playing sped up until it and the flames rose higher, joined now by new blossoms of flame that erupted in the building's roof and along the wooden parts of the doorframe and the walls.

Though nothing outside the marked line was touched by the fire, it quickly burnt hot enough to be felt even where they were standing.

*

A gunshot cut through Charlie's music.

Heads snapped around as everyone shifted from a ready stance into one prepared for imminent fighting.

There was a group of dark shapes speeding towards them, their intent unmistakable. The creatures would have looked like wolves if it hadn't been for the spikey shields rising behind their heads. There were eight of them.

A ninth lay unmoving, dropped where the bullet had hit it.

Graham shifted his aim to the next one, sighting and firing.

Alec released his arrow. He had a fresh one pulled from his quiver before the string had stopped vibrating. Two more of the creatures went down. The others continued to advance, undeterred and eerily silent.

Ready for the next shot the moment he had a good aim, Alec vaguely noted the dagger hilt suddenly sprouting from the wolf that had advanced the farthest.

By his side, Jace dropped his throwing arm and raised his sword instead to receive the assault.

Izzy and Clary had moved in, forming as much of a wall of swords as three fighters could.

Alec's next target faltered, stumbled and jumped back to its feet, gaining ground again quickly. He cursed under this breath. This bow wasn’t bad, but it wasn't his own. That one had a lot more power.

His hands had moved automatically to ready the next arrow, though. Following the up and down movement of the shaggy snout, he waited for the right moment to release.

This time, the creature stayed down.

Graham had taken out a third, but that still left three of them coming towards them, and those three had made it close enough for the ranged weapons to be at a disadvantage.

Izzy stepped forward to meet the first as it jumped, her sword leaving a dark trail in the matted fur at its throat even as she evaded the snapping teeth.

Moving in together, Clary and Jace sunk their blades into one of the remaining two.

Alec whirled, the tip of his arrow following the trajectory of the last wolf as it jumped, trying to clear their line.

Loosened at a short distance, the arrow buried itself deeply in the creature's flesh, throwing it off-course and to the ground, where it lay on its side for a moment.

His sister was on it just as it started to pick itself up again, finishing what Alec had started with another powerful swipe of her sword.

They stood, weapons in hand, turning to check all directions.

"Was that all of them?" Alec asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Looks like it." Jace was wiping his sword in the grass. "Unless there's another pack hiding somewhere."

"I've never seen more than one pack in one place." Graham hadn't lowered his rifle much, though. "But I'll admit that dealing with them is much easier with some help than when it's just you and your boss who won't lift a finger to help if he can help it…"

"You run into these often?" Standing closest to the last fallen beast, Izzy yanked Alec's arrow free to return it to him.

Graham shrugged. "Not so much these days. It was more common when I worked as a sorcerer's bodyguard. They're pretty good guard dogs, and common enough they're not that hard to find or replace if someone decimates the pack."

Alec, Izzy and Jace nodded. They weren't exactly new at dealing with this specific type of creature either.

"Charlie."

That was Michael, who had spent the entire attack stoically standing in place, trusting in them to shield him and Magnus.

He knelt slowly now, putting the warlock down in the grass. "We need to do something. Magnus isn't well."


	11. Chapter 11

"Magnus isn't well" was a given in the current situation, but this was a different degree of unwell.

Breathing had become an effort that he was struggling to continue. His face had gone from pale to an ashen grey.

Alec's knuckles turned white on his bow.

He couldn't stand here and not be with Magnus.

He couldn't just leave his position in their defense. What if something else came to have a go at them?

Izzy and Jace shifted their positions, reducing the gap between them.

"Take care of Magnus, Alec." Jace must have felt his desperation, torn between following two different needs, either equally vital. "We've got this."

Their eyes met for a moment, and Alec saw a confidence and reassurance there in Jace's that he wished he could feel. A brief nod of thanks to both of them was all that he could spare.

A moment later, he was kneeling by Magnus' side.

Later, he didn't remember putting aside his bow, pushing Michael out of the way or scooping up Magnus to hold him close.

He'd never forget what it was to sit there, though, Magnus' body feeling much too cold against his, shuddering as he lay in Alec's arms.

This couldn't be happening. Magnus was a warlock. He was supposed to be immortal. He had to be alright.

Someone was whispering reassurances, as if just keeping up a string of talk could keep Magnus from slipping further away.

It took him a moment to realize that that was his own voice.

No. There had to be something more sensible that he could do.

Magnus' head tilted back a little. His golden cat eyes found Alec's dark ones and held them. There was the ghost of a smile on his lips.

"I love you, Alexander." Though his voice was barely audible, the words were clear enough for Alec.

"I love you, too." He leaned in, resting his cheek against Magnus' hair. "We'll get you through this. I promise."

He didn't know where the resolve in his voice was coming from, but he embraced it. Whatever it took, he was willing to do it.

Magnus moved weakly, lifting his right arm a fraction of an inch.

Trying not to think of the pain he might be causing, Alec took the bandaged hand in his, stroking blood-stained fingertips.

"Remember when you saved Luke?" he asked. "You borrowed some of my strength. Can you do that now?"

There was no reaction for a moment. Then Magnus shook his head slightly against Alec's chest.

Charlie had come over in the meantime, squatting down next to them and scrutinizing Magnus as if she could somehow look through the blanket and bandages and inside his body.

"Charlie?" Alec asked, almost wincing when he realized how demanding his voice sounded.

"I got rid of the magic that was attached to him on the outside," she said. "But there's more going on inside, where my charm couldn't touch. This is something we need aunties for."

It wasn't hard to see that they didn't have the time to take Magnus to the aunties. "Can you bring them here?"

Charlie held his eyes. "It wouldn't do any good." She raised a hand to stop his protest. "Alec, the people in my family don't hold power. We use the power that's around us. The aunties aren't connected to this realm. They'd need time to throw down an anchor or they wouldn't have much to work with."

He jerked his head in the direction of the cottage, still burning at their backs. "You call that 'not much to work with'?"

"I'm different." She tapped her guitar. "I am Wild. I carry the power in my music, and I take that with me where I go."

Alec inhaled deeply as he tried to sort his thoughts and work with what he had. They needed to get Magnus to the aunties, in their home dimension, and they had to get him there alive. Magnus needed strength to see him through that. He, Alec, had strength to spare, but Magnus couldn't take it on his own.

Charlie had done something with the connection that there was between Alec and Magnus before, to take them to him. He'd felt her music connect with him and spin him into something larger, if only for a moment, when she had shielded Jace. Maybe…

"Is there a way to transfer some of my… my strength, my lifeforce, whatever you call it, to him? To give him a boost? Can you do that with your music?"

Her eyes said 'yes'. Her words cautioned. "Alec, you al—"

At least they tried to. He cut her off as Magnus sagged against him and Alec could feel what little strength there was left seeping out of him. "If you can do it - Do it! Whatever else, I don't care."

Her hand went to her guitar, producing something that sounded more like an accident than music. She let the notes hang in the air for a moment before silencing the strings with her flat hand and starting to pick a tune.

When he had shared with Magnus back at the loft, when it had been all about saving Luke, the flow of energy had been controlled, a small trickle that Magnus siphoned off to bolster his exhausted magic.

This was different. This was a dam opening and a stream rushing out of him that left him light-headed and feeling slightly detached.

He could feel Magnus' breathing steady, though, his pulse growing stronger against the hand Alec had resting at the base of his throat.

The flood evened out after a short while, turning into something more measured and controllable.

"Let's get going," Charlie said. She didn't stop playing. "We need to get out of here before I break a string or something."

Michael moved in, and Alec relinquished his hold on Magnus with only a little hesitation. The faster they could get back to the apartment, the sooner someone could actually help Magnus.

A wave of dizziness swamped Alec as he picked up his bow and rose to his feet.

Jace's hand on his elbow steadied him. He shook it off.

"I'm alright." He was. He'd just needed a moment to let the world around him settle. He felt the pull of Charlie's music, but he could walk – and he could shoot if he needed to.

Clary looked around at Charlie. "Can't we go through the Wood to make it faster?"

The bard shook her head. "Not unless you want me to drop Magnus' life support. I only have one guitar and two hands."

"We walk," Alec said.

They walked fast.

How far were they from where Jack was waiting for them anyway? He wished he'd actually kept an eye on the time as they'd hiked to the cottage. It couldn't be that far … could it?

"We should have gone back and gotten him sooner after all," Alec muttered.

He hadn't intended for Charlie to hear him over her music, but the bard seemed to have a rather keen sense of hearing.

On second thoughts, it might have had something to do with the amplification charm sketched on her temple. He didn't quite remember when she'd acquired that one, but he supposed she'd put it there to avoid having anything sneak up on them in the cottage.

"No, we shouldn't have," she told him evenly. "You remember I told you I can leave the Wood at any time and into any dimension as long as I have a marked exit point, right? I can't just aim for a random time or location. If I'd aimed for Magnus, I would have brought us out in the middle of that circle, and my skin's still crawling just from touching that thing with a note to destroy it."

He had to admit that he hadn't paid a lot of attention to the circle design in that basement, but he had a very clear memory of Jace preventing him from stepping into it.

"I can't aim for two meters to the right of the signal I get to home in on. I could have aimed for the nearest source of power, but I suspect that would have been a very bad idea, too."

"You suspect." Maybe they should have just risked _that_.

"Well," Charlie said, her hands still keeping up the same tune she'd started on earlier, "we're about to find out about that, because it's been moving towards us since we started walking away from the cottage. And I don't think it's coming to be our escort back to the Gate."

Alec groaned. Would it really have been too much to ask to let them at least get back to Jack without further incidents? "From where and how far?" he asked.

She indicated the direction with a nod of her head. "With a little luck, we'll make the high ground on the next hill first." That said, she sped up her steps a little more to catch up with Graham.

*

The first they saw was the sky darkening in the distance, as if a wall of dark, heavy clouds was rolling towards them, bringing a storm.

They heard it before they could make out details: A low, dangerous rumble, quickly growing in volume until it sounded like the rage of a storm overlaid on the roaring of predators. Mixed in with it was the jingling of blades.

As the darkness approached, it looked like the swirling black mass they were used to seeing in demons, though this was moving around a core of whirling claws or blades, flashes visible here and there where the light hit gleaming material. Alec thought he could make out four or five different entities, but with the way they were writhing, swirling around and through each other, coalescing into one and separating again, he couldn't be sure.

He could feel the anger directed at them.

Trying to find a place to put an arrow in, he reassessed his earlier thought:

No, they most certainly should not have tried to jump into _that_. Much as he hated to admit to it, he was beginning to understand Charlie's reluctance to skip dimensions blindly.

They were clustered around Michael and Charlie now, weapons directed outwards. Graham, like Alec, was trying to find a spot to aim for.

One subset of darkness surged forward, metal clanging on metal as Jace parried and slashed at the attacker.

Another piece of the cloud came towards Alec and, using his best guess, he sent his arrow where he suspected the demon's core.

The vapor shifted, the missile passing harmlessly through, only to be sucked in by the mass condensing in its wake. It came stabbing back in Alec's direction, cradled in what looked like writhing smoke. He ducked to evade it, managing just barely. He could feel the movement of air along his neck.

Not about to give the entity another weapon to attack him, Alec abandoned his bow and drew the sword he carried as a back-up, swinging it in figure-eights to keep the attacker at a distance.

On his other side, a sweeping arc of Izzy's blade had severed a bit of smoke that had dropped an ancient-looking dagger into the grass before merging back into the main mass.

So at least it wasn't entirely impervious to the seraph blades.

"What _are_ those things?" Clary asked somewhere behind Alec. She sounded as confused as he felt.

"Machin Shin's baby brothers?" Charlie suggested.

Alec ducked another attack, lunged and stabbed. He felt only a brief satisfaction as the tip of his sword connected with something. The next moment, he was busy yanking it back to keep it from being torn from his grasp. "Who?"

He could hear Charlie's eye-roll in the tone of her answer. "Don't you guys _read?_ "

"Not the right books, apparently," Jace noted.

They'd all moved closer together, leaving as little space between them as they could without hindering each other's movements.

The demons– Alec couldn't imagine what else they might have been – had apparently had enough of poking at them here and there. They rushed in.

Years of combat training took over as Alec felt the attacks come as much as he saw them. His vision narrowed in on the thing in front of him as he blocked, parried and slashed, trying to hit a core he couldn't see.

A tip of something grazed the side of his head, leaving a thin, wet line in his hair above his right ear; he felt the echo of a cut across his bicep and knew that Jace had taken a hit, too.

Charlie interrupted her tune to play a string of notes that shot through him like a wave of power, slamming into the swirls of darkness and steel and driving them back.

She slid right back into her previous work, and Alec gasped involuntarily. He'd gotten used enough to the drain to shove it to the back of his mind, but the brief interruption, even though it had only been seconds, was enough to bring it right back into his focus.

He barely met the next strike with his sword, but the musical blast seemed to have hit something in their attackers. In any case, it had made them wary. Instead of taking advantage of his momentary lapse, they withdrew a little way.

"What did you do?" That was Clary, sounding breathless.

"I told them that we have a dragon and are not afraid to use him," Charlie said.

"You what?"

She chuckled, a sound that seemed entirely inappropriate for their current situation. "I played a bar of Jack's song."

Jace used the reprieve to switch sword hands. "Is that going to summon him?"

"No."

The clouds of darkness condensed, growing more compact and reeling in their various tendrils until they looked almost solid, albeit still quite shapeless.

There was a sound on the wind now that wasn't caused by the commotion they produced in the air.

"I called him before I linked Alec and Magnus. He's almost on top of us."

She was still speaking when Izzy gave a sudden, relieved laugh. "There!"

Following the direction she indicated with a quick stab of her sword, Alec saw the golden shape speed towards them through the air, sunlight glinting on polished metal.

In dragon shape, Jack was gigantic.

The first blast of fire hit so close that Alec could feel the sting of heat on his exposed skin.

Wherever the demons' cores were concealed, dragonfire didn't need to concern itself with finding out. It simply enveloped the entire entity, leaving behind only blackened ground, melted metal and the stink of various materials gone up in flame as it died away.

"This way!" Charlie called out, leading them away from the ridge and further towards the Gate while Jack continued to deal with their attackers, incinerating one by one with well-placed jets of flame.

They hadn't gone far when the dragon swerved and changed direction, catching up with them with two powerful beats of his wings.

Even knowing that the dragon was a friend, Alec had a moment of fighting a very primal sense of impending panic as the huge creature was above him, his shadow turning the day into twilight.

"Hurry," Jack's voice boomed, not from above but inside his head. Glancing around, he could see that everyone else was hearing it, too. "There's no way my uncles won't learn there's a strange dragon in the sky in their territory!"

Given the urgency in his voice, Alec could only assume that his uncles were not going to come over to help them find a safe way home. He tried not to think of what an undefined number of creatures like the one just overhead now would do to them if they decided to shoot first and ask questions later. Or, more likely, breathe fire first and ask questions later.

*

They made the Gate, running the last stretch under Jack's guard, and half convinced that they could hear more of the enormous wings on the air in the distance.

Actually, Alec thought, going by the way Jack dove through the Gate after them, changing shape in mid-leap, rolling and turning to close the passage behind them as soon as he hit the ground in the park, it might have been more than just their imagination.

They stood for a moment, panting, the nephilim and Graham all sporting bloody scrapes and cuts from their encounter – though none of them, as far as Alec could see, would require more than a basic iratze.

Charlie was still playing.

Michael laid Magnus down gently in the grass again.

Movement behind the Gate, now closed, caught Alec's eye.

David detached himself from the stone he'd been leaning on, motionless enough to merge with the background. He wore jeans, and nothing else. His eyes were black rim to rim, like a demon's. It was enough to speed up Alec's pulse and make him tighten his grip on his sword.

If David noticed that, he ignored it.

He walked straight to Magnus, kneeling to reach for a bandaged wrist as if he could feel Magnus' pulse through the layers. His other hand touched Magnus' forehead, resting there for a moment.

As they gathered around, Alec saw with some shock that he started to draw thin, gleaming lines there.

"No!" He closed the distance, ready to push David away, but was intercepted by Graham, who was now carrying his rifle on his back again. "He's a warlock! You can't put runes on him – he won't—"

"It's just charms," David said evenly, without stopping his work, though he shifted his focus and placed another design in the general area above Magnus' heart.

Alec wanted to protest. Surely it didn't make that much of a difference.

Then again, they put charms on their leprechaun, and he seemed none the worse for it.

For that matter, they had put charms all over the mundane, and he seemed as sane as any person could be after frequent close-up exposure to this particular group of people. Michael may have had an oddly casual relationship to things magical for someone who didn't belong in that world, but they certainly hadn't turned him into a Forsaken.

David looked up, though it was at Charlie, not Alec. "The spell's deactivated. You can stop playing on against it."

Relief washed over her face as she let go of her instrument and pocketed her pick, shaking out her arms and stretching her hand.

"That tune was starting to get on my nerves," she admitted.

Alec felt the flow of energy between him and Magnus cease, and while he understood that it was rather the opposite that had happened, it was almost as if he had just lost a part of himself.

Probing around in the same way that he could follow his connection to Jace, however, he could still _feel_ Magnus there, through that link Charlie had used to track him down earlier.

He felt a headache coming on, though.

"Do we need to call ritual?" Charlie had fished out her phone.

"Nah." David put Magnus' hand back down across his body and rose. "Just take him home. They'll be able to patch him up with what they have. This isn't anything close to the time you were crushed by that troll."

Charlie made a face as if she had just been reminded of a particularly unpleasant experience. "You had to mention that one, did you?" she asked.

Alec tapped Graham's hand on his arm. "You can let go now. I won't do anything stupid."

The other three were standing around Jack, who had apparently decided that no one was allowed to bleed on the park. His charms made short work of their cuts and scrapes. Alec could feel the sting of Jace's injuries disappear.

Reaching up to touch the cut along the side of his head, he winced. His dark hair may have been hiding the worst of it, but there was still blood seeping from the wound.

Sparing a quick glance at the red coating the tips of his fingers, he drew an iratze across the cut.

The response wasn't quite the same as activating the rune. That was more like a pulse of energy running through his body, healing anything it encountered if it was within the properties of the rune. It wasn't a comfortable feeling.

The charm didn't bring the same instantaneous surge. It stayed limited to the direct proximity in which it was put, and it felt less aggressive.

In the end, though, it got the job done.

He thought he could actually get used to this variety of healing.

No one stood in his way this time when he moved to join Magnus.

The warlock's skin felt cool to his touch now, but not the unhealthy, clammy cold it had been before. He was breathing evenly. The bandages on his hands and wrists had acquired red stains.

Charlie seemed to guess at his thoughts as he wondered if he could risk putting an iratze charm on his lover. "We should get him back to the apartment, so the aunties can fix this. Those cuts will take more than a quick healing to disappear. They're so deep – we'll want to make sure the tendons and nerves are pieced back together properly before that heals."

That was a good point.

"The aunties can do that?"

She nodded, a confident smile on her face. "The aunties have done much more difficult work in the past."

He felt a smirk pull on the corner of his mouth. "Did one of those have to do with you being crushed by a troll?"

"That, too. Okay, listen here!" Charlie clapped her hands twice, sharply, to get everyone's attention. "Let's spare Magnus the long ride. I'll take him right over to the apartment through the Wood. Graham and Jack can drive everyone else home."

There was no protest.

Alec looked down at Magnus again.

His eyes were closed, his face almost relaxed. Exhaustion must have taken a hold of him and tipped him over the edge into sleep or unconsciousness. Maybe one of David's charms had helped with that.

Somehow, that made him all the more reluctant to give up Magnus to Michael's strong arms again.

"I'll take him from here," he declared, the stare he leveled at Charlie, Graham and Michael in turn daring them to object. "I don't assume we'll need an archer the rest of the way?"

Charlie smiled down at them, as if she'd expected nothing else.

"I think we can do without," she confirmed. "Ready when you are."


	12. Chapter 12

One step took them into the wood.

The next brought them back out of it, and into a flat, planted tray on the apartment's roof terrace.

"So this is what this is for?" Alec asked as he carefully stepped over the edge and onto the concrete floor.

"Mm-hm." Charlie pushed her guitar onto her back and walked ahead to the door to let them inside. "Used to be I'd go through the shrubbery in the yard, but ever since Allie expanded it so we could fit more cars in there, it's been hard to aim for."

He'd thought there was something odd about the dimensions of the yard – it had seemed larger than it should have been when he'd been fencing there with Izzy– but he'd previously put it down to optical illusion and skillful placement of objects. He made a mental note to never assume there was a mundane explanation for anything around this family.

They were expected.

Alec barely made it through the door before Allie ushered him into the spare room Izzy had previously occupied.

"I hope your sister doesn't mind sharing the living room," she said, navigating around the waiting aunties. "But I think your friend will need the peace and quiet of having a room to himself."

With a non-committal sound, Alec put his precious burden down on the bed. He didn't intend to let Magnus out of his sight again until he was sure he was going to be alright. That was slightly at odds with the idea of giving him a room _to himself_. They could discuss that later, though.

Now, there was healing to be done.

Gwen started unwrapping the bandages, applying small charms where the gauze stuck to cut skin.

"Why would anyone do this?" she asked, studying the slashed flesh, swollen, oozing blood again – and it didn't seem to be because unwrapping the bandages had torn anything open. At closer scrutiny, Alec thought that those cuts looked like they'd never started to close. He felt sick at the realization.

Even without that, he had to admit that those surely were nothing for an iratze.

Magnus moved when Gwen took his hand in hers, muttered sounds not quite resolving into meaning coming from his lips.

"Charlotte," Bea said, a demanding note to her voice. "Give him a lullaby to put him under properly. We can't have him twitch while we work." Without waiting for an answer from her, she turned to Alec. "You can wait in the living room, Alexander. There's nothing here for you to do."

Alec squared his shoulders as he met her eyes. Power seemed to shine in those dark depths. How was it that the older Gale generation seemed to have one consistent eye color, and while all the younger ones' eyes were grey?

He shoved the thought aside. That was a question he could ask another time. Nothing should be distracting him – or them – from Magnus now.

And Magnus, he realized, was about the only thing that made him willing to defy Auntie Bea.

"I'm staying." He forced a calm, determined tone into his voice. "I won't be in your way, but I'm not leaving Magnus."

Bea had already opened her mouth to respond, but Trisha gave a small shake of her head that made her delay her answer.

"Let him stay," she suggested. "Just in case we trigger that spell again."

"What spell?" Alec remembered there'd been something in the park - Something David had said.

With a sound almost like a sigh, Charlie put a hand on his wrist, closing her fingers so hard it started to be uncomfortable.

For a moment, nothing happened, and he was wondering what exactly she thought she was doing there.

As he turned to look at her, he spotted hints of a green glow at the edge of his vision. He reversed direction.

There was a soft light emanating from the necklace Auntie Bea wore; an even softer one from Charlie's guitar. The sheen of green around the Gales' charms and his runes was so faint it was almost invisible.

Magnus shone with what looked like the afterglow of a strong lamp that had just been switched off.

His magic, Alec realized. Or what was left of it, drained as it was by blood loss.

There were two cores of light inside Magnus' body, though, that were so bright they almost hurt his eyes, even though he knew they technically couldn't.

One came from the design cut into his forearm. The other seemed centered on his chest.

"What is that?" Alec asked, hoping Charlie wouldn't tell him 'a spell' and demand he'd phrase a better question.

She didn't. "They took a lot of precautions," she said. "If I read them correctly, that one on his arm makes sure he keeps bleeding just enough to prevent him from recovering any strength. It keeps him at the brink to where the blood loss would be life-threatening."

So that was where all the blood in the cottage had come from.

"The other seems to be a backup in case he manages to drag up the power to try to heal himself after all. It doesn't do anything until it comes into contact with a healing spell, and then it starts to shut down his body."

Alec felt himself go pale. "Did you trigger it … back there?"

"I think the charms from the first-aid kit did," Charlie answered.

"You can remove them, right?" He rested his hand against Magnus' chest, focusing on the feel of its rise and fall with steady breaths that didn't give the slightest indication of the magical bomb rigged beneath, ready to go off if touched the wrong way.

Auntie Bea gave him a cool look. "We'll have to do something about the one in his arm. He can't keep bleeding if we want him to recover. The other's not tied to any kind of power source, so it'll fade and dissipate over time. It'll be safer not to touch that. Hard to tell if it's rigged to set anything off if we try to remove it."

"But he needs a healing!" Alec protested. "Look – He can't shape his magic if he has no use of his hands. That's surely why they cut them up that badly to begin with. They _need_ to heal right."

"They will." That was Gwen, who had never stopped studying the bloody crisscross. "Just not immediately. We can use charms and power to fit everything back together. He can start to heal normally then. Once that spell dissipates, we can speed it up the rest of the way."

"Or he can do that himself," Bea added. "I'm sure he'll be able to tell when it's time. Now, if you don't mind? We have a lot of work to do."

Alec did mind. The thought that all they were going to do was to magically stitch up those wounds, leaving Magnus virtually helpless for who knew how long, didn't sit well with him.

Since he didn't have any better idea, however, he relented.

He almost jumped up from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed on the side opposite the aunties when he saw a blade flash in Bea's hand a moment later.

"Alexander," the chief auntie said, leveling a stare at him that made him feel all of five years old. "You really do have to leave if you can't control yourself. We can't just erase a hex that was cut into his flesh." With that, she put the tip of the knife just outside the outer-most line of the shape marked in the warlock's arm, pressing it in a little and pulling it across the design, slicing it in half.

Carmen had a compress ready, soaked in some kind of potion. She slapped it on the design Bea had called a hex the moment the knife was gone.

"Make yourself useful and put some pressure on this, Alexander," she told Alec, leaving her hand in place just long enough for him to take over.

It was the only thing he could do for Magnus right now, other than just be there with him, so he clamped his hand over the square of white. He imagined that he could feel Magnus' pulse all the way through it against his palm.

That, of course, was just a trick of his mind.

The power he could see play around the Aunties' hands as one of them gathered it, one shaped it and one used it to slowly, bit by bit, pull muscles, tendons, nerves and veins back in place while the fourth sealed them together with a layer of magic like glue or tape, was not.

Charlie had moved off to the side, sliding into a chair to wait in case she was needed to play a spell of her own again. She'd long let go of his wrist.

It seemed that his mind had caught on to the trick of making the magic visible on its own.

*

They walked into the apartment to the smell of fresh pie and the sight of Evan and Edward, the older set of twins, trying out their crayons on the living room table. Paper wasn't involved.

Since their mother was standing in the kitchen with Melissa and Katie, Izzy assumed she knew what was going on and didn't mind.

The arrival of their father made them jump up and race each other to Graham, who handed the backpack he carried to Michael before picking them both up. His rifle had stayed downstairs, safely locked in the weapons' room once again.

Glancing at the mass of color on the table, Izzy was quite glad for a moment that the children's artistic skills didn't quite suffice yet to copy out the design that was visible on the knitting someone had left on a sofa. It was the first time she had gotten a close look at the socks she'd seen one of the aunties knit earlier, and they were clearly meant to keep someone's feet very warm in a very cold winter.

They had a Heat rune on one side of the shaft, and a Fireproof on the other.

Michael walked past the crayoned table and upended Graham's backpack on the larger dinner table without any further ado.

"This is the stuff we grabbed from the cottage," he said. "While you were downstairs getting out Magnus. Anything here that you recognize?"

"Wait." They spoke almost in unison. Under the amused look Michael spread out among them, Jace continued: "Where are Magnus and Alec?"

"Guest room," Allie said from the oven. "But I wouldn't go in there now. The aunties are working on Magnus, and they weren't too happy when Alec refused to leave them alone with him. I won't guarantee for the safety of anyone else who enters."

Izzy looked at Jace, who shrugged. Apparently there wasn't any great amount of despair coming through their _parabatai_ bond, so they might as well look at what Michael and Graham had brought.

The backpack had been very full, spilling a heap of objects onto the table that looked like they shouldn't even have all fit in there. There were a great number of things of which she had no idea what they were, or what they were meant for, pieces of jewelry, an elaborately decorated pen…

The first familiar thing that caught her eye was a silvery armband, shaped like a coiled snake. She picked it out of the heap and snapped it on her arm. "Mine," she answered the unasked question. "It's electrum, and it's actually a weapon." She fished out a small silver rod that she stuck into the top of her jeans. "Also mine."

"All of that was in the other room?" Jace asked, retrieving his own stele and handing Clary hers.

Graham came over, one twin on his shoulders and the other on his hip. "And more, but everything else was too bulky to grab. A charmed backpack isn't a pocket universe after all. I'd say it was some kind of trophy room, though."

"You didn't happen to snap a picture of it before Charlie torched the place?" Jace asked. He'd started roughly sorting the objects apart.

"Will show you when I have a hand free," Graham promised. "Which may translate to 'after dinner'."

Clary put Alec's stele by the edge of the table, while Izzy's hand darted into the assortment to pull out a ring on a necklace before something else could drop on top of it. She tossed it at Jace, who caught it easily.

"Right. The Herondale ring. Grandma Imogen would be most displeased if I lost that one," he commented drily as he pulled the necklace over his head and stuck the ring under his shirt. "Were our weapons among the 'too large to take'?"

"No weapons," Graham said. "They probably had other uses for those."

"Are these yours?" Jace pointed Clary to a number of rings, connected with delicate chains, that looked very much like the ones she used to wear.

She took them, but pocketed them instead of putting them on. "Where'd Michael go?" she asked, looking around.

"Probably to find Brian and tell him he's home." Katie walked past them to the other table with a dish rag in her hands and picked up one of the crayons – of all things – to draw a generous charm all over the table top before wiping the mess away easily.

"How does that even work?" Clary asked, her attention no longer on the loot pile.

Everyone else looked at her.

Katie came back over to them, rag and crayons in hand. "How does what work?"

Clary took a step away from the table. "The runes. Charms. Whatever. You make runes without a stele and call them charms, and they work." She spread her hands. "And apparently they also work when we make them, except no one has ever thought to try it before – which I can kind of see happening. Sorry, everyone, but you're not exactly raised to experiment."

No one objected. Doing things not-by-the-rules got you killed. Worse, it also got the people killed who were with you.

"Go on," Jace prompted. "We're not going to challenge that statement."

"So I get these visions of new runes, and I'm the only one who can use them – except that Charlie just used my sunlight rune today and it didn't even seem new to her."

She looked around, but Charlie wasn't anywhere to be seen to ask about this.

"Charlie's with Alec and the aunties," Katie told them, noticing their looks. "You don't mean this one, do you?" Putting the tip of a crayon against the table, she sketched the shape there, sending a burst of bright light up from the table top and into the ceiling until she wiped away the charm.

Edward clapped his hands happily on Graham's shoulders, while Evan giggled at the sight. "Pretty!" They declared. "Again!"

"That one," Clary confirmed. "Why can you do it and they can't? And why—"

Katie cut her off before she could finish the second question. "Have they _tried_?"

That made Izzy blink. She _hadn't_ tried, but she'd only learned about the rune by spying on Clary, and then things had happened, and she hadn't exactly shared the other runes in that much detail… And anyway, everyone knew that the list of runes that was usable for them was limited to the ones in the Gray Book, and there was no such thing as new runes…

But that, she understood with a stab of unease, was exactly the problem. They were so convinced they knew it wouldn't work that they hadn't even tried.

Going by Jace's face, he hadn't tried it either.

Katie had realized that, too. She was shoving the crayon into his hand. "Table. Sunlight. Now." She ordered.

Jace was handling the small blue rod as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. It almost looked like he'd never had a crayon in his hand before.

Given who had raised him, and how, that wasn't entirely beyond the imaginable.

She could almost see the thoughts on his face as he considered taking out his stele instead, and decided that it was probably not wise to burn a rune into the Gales' dinner table.

He drew, a bit more hesitant, clearly having to think about where the lines went.

His light was not quite as strong as Katie's had been, but it, too, received applause from the boys.

"You need to put more confidence in that," Katie told him. "You get better results if you don't doubt yourself while you make a charm."

Izzy felt laughter bubbling up. She clamped a hand to her mouth, but she couldn't stop herself from breaking into helpless giggles.

Clary, too, was grinning, while Jace shot both of them dirty looks.

"I'm sorry," Izzy gasped. She was leaning on the table with her free hand. "It's just – no one has ever, in all the time I've known him, accused Jace of lacking confidence."

Jace's scowl was made that much darker by his own attempt to not join in their amusement.

"You want confidence?" he asked, targeting a free bit of table with the crayon. "I'll give you confidence."

The beam of light that went up this time was enough to make them blink away spots. The boys cheered and demanded another rerun.

"You're a quick study," Katie said. "Now put that out again."

He wiped his hand over the crayon charms.

Nothing happened.

All three nephilim's eyes went to Katie, who rolled hers. "Don't tell me none of you know how to erase a charm?"

"We don't exactly _erase_ runes," Izzy told her. "Deruning is said to be quite painful and requires a special device."

"It looked less painful than I'd hoped when I removed Valentine's Circle," Jace pointed out. He swiped at the charm again. "How did you do yours?"

Katie walked him through the motions. Izzy committed them to memory, wondering if they would work on runes as well. It wasn't like they were likely to want to remove any runes, but maybe it was time to start _experimenting_ with things.

"Izzy." Jace's voice cut though her thoughts. He held out the crayon to her. "You don't have extra angel blood, so let's see if it makes a difference."

It didn't, other than the boys starting to get bored by the repetition of the same effect.

"Now that that one's settled," Katie said, turning back to Clary when Izzy had erased her charm again. "What was the other question?"

Clary hadn't forgotten there had been one. "I drew the rune for Jace and we looked it up in the Gray Book – where it wasn't. It didn't end up shooting light from the page when I drew it. And if just drawing runes does the same as burning them in with a stele, why don't the runes in the book do anything? Or on Max' flash cards?"

The flash cards Clary had been borrowing to memorize the runes, Izzy remembered.

"Did you _want_ it to?" Katie asked, which got her an uncomprehending look from Clary.

Following some gestures from Allie, she reached for the backpack. "Can we put everything that's not yours back in there? We need the table."

When they started to help her, she fell into what sounded like a lecture she'd repeated many times. Given the content, she probably had - to younger family members.

"For a workable charm, you need three ingredients: A focus, intent and a power source. The shape you draw is the focus for your charm that shapes the energy. If you don't draw it _intending_ for it to work, though, it's just going to sit there and look stupid. And then you need something to actually power it. That's why most people, even if they can remember what the charms look like, won't be able to get them to work, 'cause they can't draw power to them." She zipped the backpack closed and leaned it against the wall. "Though I've heard of some people of the kind you call mundanes who've learned to get some limited use out of them."

"So the stele is the power source?" Izzy hazarded a guess.

Melissa put a stack of plates on the table, and she started to spread them out. She thought she was getting better at fitting into the Gale's kitchen dance.

"The power source is all around you," Katie said. "We channel what energy there is through the charms. That's why it doesn't matter so much what we make them with, though adding something of your own, like sweat or blood, is going to amplify the effect. I don't know what your steles actually do. They're creepy, though."

"Creepy?" Jace had taken his out to stare at it.

Izzy couldn't see anything creepy about the steles either, though she figured that maybe, if she'd grown up just drawing runes all over the place and having them work, she might find the idea of people burning them into their own flesh creepy, too.

"They must do something," she mused. "Or why else wouldn't we just use them the way you do?"

"Yeah." Melissa dropped a handful of cutlery on the table with one hand and put down a bowl with freshly cooked vegetables with the other. "Because I couldn't think of any reasons someone might want to make it seem more special than it is, or to keep people from just trying things and figuring out they've not been told the whole truth. I hear tattoos are painful. Pain's a pretty good deterrent."

"They're not tattoos," Izzy said, but her heart wasn't in it. Applying runes was painful, and the more powerful the rune, the more pain there was. No, you weren't very likely to experiment with a stele.

Thinking of runes and steles reminded her of something else.

"So you can just – I don't know, _make_ new charms if you need them? And have them work because you _intend_ them to?"

Katie brought a platter of fried sausage over from the stove, while Melissa pushed several more bowls into Jace's hands to be put on the table. Graham was working on getting the boys to admit that it was time for dinner, while Allie had disappeared, probably to feed the younger twins.

"Not randomly," Katie said. "You might imagine it like this: Most of what I've seen of your runes are what we'd call basic charms. Imagine them like letters, if you like. Most, because some of them I've never seen before. You'll find that most of the charms we use are more like words or sentences than letters. They do follow rules, though."

"So we can learn those rules, too?" Izzy asked, stepping aside to let Michael and Brian through who, though both mundanes, seemed to have magically realized that dinner was on the table.

Jace hesitated before sitting down. "Shouldn't we wait for Alec?" He glanced at the hallway leading to the other rooms.

"I don't think he's going to come out before they're done with Magnus." Allie returned to take her place next to one of the twins to relieve Graham of the task of taking care of two young children at the dinner table. "They'll probably be a while longer. It'll be far too late for the boys to have dinner then. We'll keep something warm for him."

While he didn't look quite convinced, Jace did take his seat.

Izzy stared at the portions Allie heaped on each of their plates. Was she thinking they spent several days in the Seelie Realm without food?

Admittedly, though, her stomach did react with a small rumble to the smells.

Then again, Gale food seemed to always make you feel hungry, even if you were sure you'd eaten quite enough of it already.

She decided that that was a question to explore another time, and dug in instead.

Katie alternated with Graham to keep the twin between them interested in his food and using it mostly in the intended manner.

"I don't see why you couldn't", she said, and it took Izzy a second to realize she was answering her earlier question. "Most of our young people have the hang of it by the time they reach their teens, though we obviously still refine our skill after that."

"We'll be in so much trouble when someone figures out we're doing _charms_ ," Jace pointed out.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Clary commented, waving her fork around.

That drew chuckling from the Gales around the table, and uncomprehending looks from Izzy and Jace.

Allie sighed as she noticed. "You need to read more," she told them.

Izzy and Jace exchanged a glance. Hadn't they just heard that same thing from Charlie earlier today?

"We'll be in trouble anyway," Izzy said instead of responding to it. "We're kind of AWOL, you know. No one's actually called back to report that we're still alive."

"Right." Jace chewed and swallowed, possibly a bit more slowly than he needed to in order to gain some time for an answer. "I'm not sure we should do that just yet. At the very least, we should wait and hear what Magnus has to add."

Speaking of Magnus… "Should they be taking so long to fix him up?" Izzy looked at Allie. "It seems to take an awful lot of time."

For a moment, Allie's face took on a faraway, absent look. She did that every now and then, Izzy had noticed.

When her eyes focused again, she gave her a reassuring smile. "It's a bit complicated, but they're working on it. They'll be done soon enough."

*

'Soon enough' took almost another hour.

Eventually, the four old women emerged from the guest room, crowding around the table to make short work of the second installment of dinner that Katie and Graham served for them.

Allie took two plates with sausages, a generous helping of vegetables and fried potatoes from the kitchen counter and held them out to Jace and Izzy. "For Alec and Charlie," she explained, quite needlessly.

Jace gave her a nod of thanks on his _parabatai_ 's behalf, and followed Izzy and Clary towards the guest room.

The aunties had left the door open a crack, and Izzy knocked briefly against the frame to announce their presence. It wasn't as if they could possibly interrupt anything in there, but it seemed the polite thing to do.

Charlie was in a chair off to the side, her guitar by her feet, looking as if she was waiting for her turn to go on stage and play.

She accepted the plate Izzy handed her with a grin that looked almost dangerously hungry, though.

Alec sat with Magnus, exuding a protectiveness that would have been amusing in any other situation, considering that Magnus was centuries old and one of the most powerful warlocks that had ever lived.

Now, however, the ancient, powerful warlock looked pale and exhausted, even in his sleep. Izzy never would have expected to ever think the words 'fragile' and 'Magnus Bane' in the same thought, but there it was. Right now, Magnus looked like someone who needed protecting.

When she had thought of the aunties patching up Magnus, Izzy had expected them to heal his injuries, the way an iratze would.

Apparently, they hadn't. His hands were thickly bandaged and splinted, still essentially useless as it seemed.

Her brother noticed her look. Closing his eyes briefly, he visibly collected himself before he explained.

Jace pushed the plate into his hands while he was still speaking.

"Eat." He ordered when Alec had finished. "You look like you're about to fall over any moment, too, and what good will you do him then?"

That may have been an exaggeration, but it wasn't a very great one.

Alec seemed to see the wisdom in his friend's advice in any case. He picked up the fork and started to eat, though rather mechanically, balancing the plate in his lap and keeping his eyes on Magnus as if he could make him heal faster if he thought it at him hard enough.

Once the food was gone, Izzy took the empty plate, handing Alec his stele instead.

A number of expressions went over his face in quick succession as he glanced down at it. Surprise, recognition, confusion – and something she could have sworn was disgust.

Now, that was not a reaction that went with the sight of a stele.

"What's wrong?"

Alec shook his head slowly. "I don't know." He picked the stele from her hand, turning it between his fingers. "But I think something is. With this. Where'd you get that?"

They filled him in, describing the photos Graham had shown them after dinner to him as well.

"Charlie," Alec said when they were done. "Can you do the same for them that you did for me? Show them how to see the power?"


	13. Chapter 13

Waking up was like clawing through quicksand. Magnus couldn't remember that it had ever been this hard to drag himself out of the depths of sleep – and he'd lived through quite a few epic hangovers in his time.

Of course this time, he was shaking off a sleep spell. He didn't remember anyone putting it on him, but he recognized the feel of it. It had been a long time since someone had managed to sneak a spell on him.

Even the group that had jumped him while he'd been on his way home hadn't done that.

They'd pounced on him and gone for his hands right away.

That was the second time in as many months that he'd let someone get at his hands.

He'd had plenty of time to berate himself for growing so careless, trusting in his wards and his power and forgetting that he wasn't, in fact, impermeable.

His hands were still hurting, and worse than they had before. While he'd been lying in the darkness, kept in that small zone where he was alive enough to not stop breathing, but too weak to access his magic – magic he could feel draining from him with a trickle of blood at the same rate it tried to recover –, held immobile by spells on top of it, the pain had dulled and become something that was always there, but could be ignored.

Now the pain felt sharper. Fresher. Something was pulling on those cuts, and inside them. His hands wanted to curl in on themselves to relieve the strain, but couldn't.

It had been centuries since the last time someone had tried to heal any injury of his with mundane means, so it took him several moments to place what had happened.

Not quite so mundane, he amended after a moment, when he sent his mind, still moving sluggishly, out to probe through his body. His hands were patched and sutured together with fine strands of magic. There was more magic wrapped around the mess, but it was all there to protect and hold together. There wasn't a single healing spell involved.

That was just as well, because while the curse they had cut in his arm to keep him just this side of bleeding out was gone, the ache from the cuts there barely noticeable against the fire in his hands, the other curse was still crouching inside his chest like a living thing ready to jump if presented with the right bait.

He'd poked at that one when he'd been alone with the magic in the basement, and needed to occupy his mind to stay sane. It wasn't going to hold up forever. As spells went, it wasn't even a particularly long-lasting one. He'd give it two weeks, three at best, before it would be gone without a trace that it had ever been there at all.

Though he hadn't had two or three weeks, he also hadn't had the magic to try and undo it. So he had set to studying it. Eventually, he had come to the conclusion that it would require a very great deal of desperation before he would attempt anything with it. Wounds would heal, and even if they didn't heal right, he could always have Catarina cut up his hands again later and re-do it properly. She may have been working as a nurse in a mundane hospital, but she was entirely capable of serving as a warlock doctor. Death was a much harder thing to fix.

Speaking of Catarina…

She would have been his first suspect for the work on his hands, given her day job. Did it count as a day job when you were working night shifts?

The magic wasn't hers, though.

Actually, it wasn't any warlock's he knew.

That was when his mind caught on to another memory. One that was so unlikely he was tempted to discard it as a dream.

Alec – his Alec – had come to that basement under a cottage in the Seelie Realm, bringing his friends and a woman with a guitar, of all things.

A Bard.

He had no idea where they'd found her. True Bards were rare. He could count the number he had met in his life on his fingers, and still have some left afterwards. The last time he'd even heard rumors of one had been nearly thirty years ago.

But that wasn't music keeping his hands together, so there had to be someone else involved – or several someone elses.

He started to focus outwards, then, trying to gage the situation he would open his eyes to.

There was Alec by his side, his fingers resting against Magnus' arm since he couldn't hold his hand. He'd recognize that touch anywhere.

People were talking, but he'd missed the beginning of the conversation, and probably much of the middle of it, too, and it didn't make much sense.

He really would have liked to interrupt them with some smooth, witty comment on his lips.

Instead, the only word that came was: "Alec."

That didn't sound smooth, or witty. All it sounded like was hoarse and rough, and about as weak as one would expect from someone who had just spent an unknown time almost-dying.

It did stop the conversation, however, as Alec's head shot around to turn his undivided attention to Magnus.

A moment later, Alec leaned forward to take Magnus in his arms and hold him close.

Reciprocating as much as he could without putting any pressure on his hands, Magnus rested his head against Alec's shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent and soaking up the contact.

For the moment, nothing else mattered. It hadn't been dreams – Alec was safe, he was here, he was well – and he, Magnus, would be just fine, given a little time.

As the first euphoria that came with the certainty that Alec was not kept in some other basement, given treatment similar to that Magnus had received, wore off, the effects of losing far too much blood set in.

Alec must have felt the change. He lowered him back down onto the bed, a concerned look on his face.

"Just dizzy," Magnus claimed, hoping he sounded more reassuring to Alec than to himself. It wasn't that he was actually unduly concerned about the situation – this merely was what happened if you almost bled out. He was talking around a sudden wave of nausea, however, and needed more than a moment to beat down on it and force his stomach to settle. Not, he thought, that there was probably anything in it.

Which might have been part of the problem, come to think of it.

Opening his eyes again, he looked around. This wasn't his loft, and it wasn't the institute either.

Neither was it any other of the locations he could have listed where Alec and his friends might have taken an injured warlock. It certainly wasn't a mundane hospital, but that would have been about the stupidest place they could have dragged him to.

The room was just large enough to not be crowded with everyone in it, furnished in light colors and with a comfortable, inviting air to it but without the kind of personal touch that would have suggested he had displaced someone from their bedroom.

He could see outlines that looked like a rune drawn with just a suggestion of power on the fly-screen in the window. He hadn't ever seen a rune like that anywhere in the New York Institute, or any other, or anywhere else around the nephilim he had met over the centuries.

"Where—" He stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "Where are we?"

"Calgary, Canada," Alec said as he reached for a glass of water to offer to Magnus.

Magnus stared at him, almost forgetting to nod at the glass in his surprise.

Raising him a little way off the pillow with one hand to make it easier for him to drink, Alec held the glass to his lips and tilted it slightly. "I know," he said. "Crazy."

The water tasted heavenly, once it had washed away the worst of the lingering taste in his mouth.

"Not necessarily," he said when the glass was empty, and Alec moved away to refill it. "I hear there's a lot of power movement going on in Calgary, a lot of travel between dimensions. It's a good place to summon big things."

There was a snort from just outside of Magnus' field of vision, and he shifted to look.

"Ah," he noted when he caught sight of the woman. "The Bard. I think I owe you my life."

She smiled at him and made a vague motion with one hand, waving it off. "No more than I would have done for any friend… or friend's friend," she claimed. "So, _we_ know that things happen in Calgary, but we live here. How do you know? And what do you think they were going to summon?"

He gave a shrug. "Just rumors, really. They—"

He was interrupted by the door opening, and another woman entering the room with long strides and a no-nonsense attitude about her, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of soup or stew.

"You should have told me he's awake." She leveled an accusatory look at Alec, then at the Bard. "He won't regain his strength on just water."

The Bard chuckled. "It seems you figured it out just fine on your own, Allie-Cat." She turned towards Magnus with an exaggerated eye-roll. "It's not like anything happens in this apartment, ever, that Allie doesn't know about. Or in this city, for that matter. So don't ever let her guilt you into feeling bad for not telling her something."

"What's in the soup?" Alec asked. He was staring into the liquid as if he was trying to read a message written at the bottom of the bowl. Magnus felt himself frowning at that. This wasn't usual Alec-behavior.

"Just some strengthening and general well-wishes," the woman told him. "No healing. Auntie Bea was hovering over the pot, making sure no one accidentally put the wrong charm in it all the time this was cooking."

That seemed to reassure Alec.

"The soup is a potion?" Magnus asked. A skilled brewer himself, he wasn't very partial to drinking potions of unknown origin, even if everyone else seemed to trust these people well enough. He at least wanted to know what was in it before any of it passed his lips.

Allie shook her head. "The soup is soup," she told him. "With a few charms in it to speed your recovery."

"It's a bit complicated," Alec said, stirring the soup. "These people call their runes charms. They also keep mixing them in with their food and just about everything else."

"The most vexing thing about it is that it actually works," Izzy pointed out, but she was laughing as she said so. "I keep thinking of what everyone back home would say if we took some of the Gales with us when we go back."

"Wait."

Alec froze, and Magnus shook his head slightly at him.

"Did you say 'Gales'?"

Izzy nodded. "Yes. Alysha Gale. Charlie Gale." She pointed at the two women. "And a few dozen others. They've taken us in and helped us get everyone out."

"Well." Magnus studied each of them in turn. "That is interesting."

"Do you _know_ who these people are, Magnus?" Alec asked. He was carefully sipping a bit of soup from the spoon, checking if it had cooled off enough to be edible.

"Yes. No. Kind of." He broke off to sort his thoughts, while Alysha Gale brought over several more pillows to prop him up so he could eat with less of a risk to the sheets. She didn't seem fazed by his reaction at all.

He shifted against the cushions, trying to get more comfortable and waiting to see if another wave of dizziness was about to hit him. Luckily, it seemed his head wasn't raised _that_ far.

His eyes found Alysha's, and held them. "I know … stories. Legends. At least I've taken them for that so far."

"But all the legends are true," Clary pointed out helpfully. "That's what you all keep telling me."

"Some more literally than others," Magnus told her.

Allie sat on the edge of his bed, on the side opposite Alec. It wasn't hard to see that she was fighting the urge to put a healing spell on his hands. "What do your legends make of us?"

"Descendants of the Horned God."

She inclined her head, confirming his statement. "That's what ours say, too."

"Wait. What?" Alec looked and sounded confused. "They're what? You're what?" He seemed unsure whether he wanted his answer from Magnus or Allie.

Magnus opened his mouth to reply, but Allie cut him off. "You eat." She turned her attention to Alec, who understood it as a prompt to start feeding the soup to Magnus.

He didn't object. There was no way his hands were going to hold as much as a spoon for a while, after all.

Satisfied that the patient was being taken care of, Allie explained. "According to the legend, once upon a time there was a woman who liked to go walking in the woods. One day, she came across a handsome stranger with antlers who was conveniently undressed. She was swept away by his prowess, spent the night out there, and nine months later there were twin daughters."

She told it in the irreverent kind of tone that said she wasn't expecting it to be one of the legends that were _literally_ true.

Looking around the room, however, Magnus noticed a look on the Bard's – Charlie's – face that suggested that opinions differed. It wasn't that she seemed to take offence at the way Allie told the tale. She didn't. But there was a serious expression in her eyes, speaking of more knowledge than she was willing to share right then. He made a mental note to ask her about that if he ever caught her alone.

"So what's your excuse?" Allie asked, looking at the nephilim expectantly.

"Excuse?" Alec returned.

"For your runes and your powers. I know you're supposed to be half-angels, but how'd it happen?"

Jace took over from there. "Supposedly, it happened in that Jonathan Shadowhunter met the angel Raziel at the banks of Lake Lyn. The Angel shared his blood with him and made him nephilim, and tasked him with keeping the mundane world safe from demons and all downworlders that would destroy them."

"He was named 'Shadowhunter'?" Charlie asked, biting back a laugh. "'Cause that's not convenient at all."

"I'd assume he took the name afterwards," Jace defended his legendary ancestor. "But we don't know what he was called before. Or where he came from. Or what he did before that day. All the important things come after."

"I could read some symbolism into that if I wanted to," Charlie said. "But if you're descended from an angel and we're descended from a god, does that mean that we win?"

"I didn't know it was a competition," Alec said darkly. "But why haven't we ever heard of you?"

Magnus knew what he meant. The Gales couldn't be classified as warlocks. Though apparently descended from a mundane and a powerful creature of the shadow world, they clearly did not share the sterility that was an invariable feature of warlocks. They didn't seem to possess any warlock marks either, as far as he could see.

They weren't nephilim either, though, and the 'horned god' was surely easier to read as a demon than he was as an angel anyway. Half-bloods between mundanes and seelies were known, and they were not like Gales.

"I may be able to explain that," Allie said, to everyone's but Charlie's surprise. "The family's always kept to itself. Up until recently, the strict rule was that the family doesn’t deal with the fey, and the family doesn't let outsiders in except in specific exceptions, like when a new male was allowed to marry in."

"You mean to tell us that over the centuries, none of your family have every strayed and done things that would require the shadowhunters to step in and take action?" Jace very clearly didn't consider that a possibility.

"No." Allie's eyes had taken on a hard, icy look that for the first time betrayed the immense power that she usually concealed under a more harmless veneer. "I mean to tell you that when any of the family does that, the rest of the family hunts them down and deals with them as soon as they find out."

"And when you say 'deals with them', you mean…?"

"I mean we kill them."

Right then, no one doubted her words. She looked and sounded exactly like someone who would do just that.

"How often does that happen?" Izzy approached the matter from its practical side.

"Maybe once a generation," Allie said. "We took out a sorcerer – a Gale gone bad – seven years ago, when we moved this branch of the family to Calgary. We should be fine for the foreseeable future. Trust me – we keep an eye on what our people do."

The nephilim weren't that great in the trust department, Magnus thought, but even they would have to admit that if the Gales had managed to fly under the radar for so long, they had to be pretty efficient at keeping their strays in line.

Magnus could feel the spells in the soup spreading through his body. They left behind a warm, pleasant sensation and made the meal seem much more substantial than soup had any right to be. It certainly chased away the last residues of the sleep spell.

"Should I get Graham?" Clary asked when Alec put the empty bowl aside. "Maybe with Magnus' statement added, we'll be able to make some more sense of what we have."

They probably wouldn't much like the sense his added statement would make.

Putting it off wasn't going to change that, though. He was just about to agree when Alec cut in.

"Can it wait a bit? Let Magnus rest and recover a bit more first."

That was sweet, and it was very tempting to agree with the statement. On second thoughts, the sooner they pooled all they knew, the smaller the risk that someone was going to do something stupid.

Such as calling the Institute.

While he couldn't be sure that they hadn't done that yet, the fact that they were all still in Calgary instead of New York seemed to be a pretty strong indicator that this wasn't part of a sanctioned mission.

He directed a reassuring smile at Alec. "I'm sure I can give a statement as long as it doesn't involve doing magic or handling cutlery." His attempt at pushing himself up a little more on his elbows resulted in a wave of fresh dizziness washing over him. He dropped back into the pillows, his smile turning rueful, and added a muttered: "or sitting up, it seems."

*

_October 18 th, 2016_

None of it would have happened if he'd decided to portal home that night, he thought afterwards.

At the time, walking had seemed like a good idea, though. He needed to work off some of the anger.

It wasn't even anger on his own behalf. He was used to dealing with the Clave being less than pleasant. He was used to random calls for help with the Institute's wards, alternating with announcements that his contract for security services was terminated with immediate effect.

He wasn't even surprised that he had been informed in no uncertain terms that until further notice – that was, until they ran into a problem they couldn't solve without warlock help – he was persona non grata at the Institute. Not after his decision to side with the Seelie Queen a few days earlier – that same Seelie Queen who had helped Valentine escape, _after_ she had had him put all his warlocks on shield duty to prevent anyone with nephilim blood from getting into or out of New York.

He could have swallowed all of that. He might even have grudgingly accepted that this time, he might have deserved some of it.

But demoting Alexander, who had done nothing wrong in his position and handled the situation of the last days of Valentine's flight admirably? That was an entirely different thing.

They had cited lack of experience on his part, and the need for a strong and _experienced_ leadership in New York to pick up the pieces after Valentine's little stunt as the cause.

He knew better – and worse: the look on Alec's face and the tone in his voice as he'd told him had made it clear that he knew it, too.

The actual reason behind that decision had much less to do with where Alec was lacking experience, and far more with where he had it: in interacting with downworlders. Doubtlessly, it was their relationship that had made the Clave jump at the first excuse they could make up, no matter how flimsy it was.

It would have been odd to banish him from the Institute while he was romantically involved with the Head of the same.

If it was confirmation yet again that nothing was going to change between the Clave and the Downworld – that they were going to use this latest string of events only to justify more of the same, to impose stricter measures and harsher rules, that was no less than they'd come to expect of the higher-up shadowhunters in charge.

The injustice to Alexander – knowing that his Alec was suffering for their love – that was harder to bear.

Alec had assured him, multiple times, that it was alright, that he didn't care.

 _He_ cared, though, just as Alec seemed to be far more furious about Magnus' ban than his own replacement.

More than that, he couldn't help but think ahead, and imagine the day on which Alec would wonder if their relationship had actually been worth the sacrifices he was making now.

To top it all off, they had chosen the worst possible candidate to run the Institute for the foreseeable future: Victor Aldertree, who surely should by all rights still have been in Idris, facing some kind of consequences for the Yin Fen stunt he had pulled on Izzy and his incompetence during Valentine's raid on the Institute.

If he'd been a bit less focused on his anger, and a little more on what he was doing, surely he would have realized he was walking into a trap.

As it was, he followed the sound of a mewling kitten – he'd never been able to resist helping out a cat in need, and it wasn't just because of a certain kinship from their shared features. He loved those furry little creatures.

He made it almost to the dead-end of the alley before he realized his mistake.

Looking around for the source of the sound, he spotted the artifact that, to the eyes of someone less used to magic, would have given off the visual to the sounds he had heard.

While he certainly recognized a lure when he saw one – spelled to draw its target by letting the target's mind come up with whatever was most likely to bring them in without getting their guard up – he only had that split second to realize he'd been tricked before something dropped into the street behind him.

There were two thuds, and before he could turn, he was seized from behind on either side, his arms wrenched back and held.

He struggled to get free, but they knew what they were doing. Hot pain flashed across his palms, the insides of his fingers, and he felt the spell he had started to shape with what limited space he had for it fall apart as the first tendons were severed by the sawing blades, taking away his control of the magic.

Twisting around – he wanted to at least get a glimpse of who had him, for all the good _that_ would do him – he almost missed a third figure stepping out of the shadows, raising another dagger to bring the hilt down, hard, against the base of his skull.

He hadn't been able to see anyone's faces, obscured as they were by hoods pulled forward, but he'd seen flashes of hands and arms – and recognized the marks on them just before darkness swallowed him.

*

_October 19 th, 2016_

His thoughts were confused, incoherent and fragmented as he woke. Trying to make sense of them hurt.

He knew that something bad had happened, but knowledge refused to resolve into meaning.

The pain in his head was echoed by pain in his hands, though it was a much lesser one –

– until he tried to move his fingers and it exploded in a white-hot flare.

He gasped in pain, wincing at how loud the sound seemed to his ears.

For a while, he lay still, forcing himself to breathe quietly, trying to remember what was going on. He wasn't sure where he was, or how he'd gotten there. Memory of what had happened to his hands, or his head, was hazy at best.

Time passed as he drifted in and out of unconsciousness, until sounds not made by him brought him awake again.

The light stung as his eyes flickered open. The room seemed to move around him.

Some small part of his brain had rallied enough to wonder for a fleeting moment if that was all from the hit he had taken to the head, or if someone had drugged him on top of it.

"Magnus!"

Alec's voice cut through his skull, painfully loud. Seeing the young man lower his arrow and rush forward, he wanted to call out a warning, scream at him to stay back, but his tongue wouldn't obey him just yet.

He was the lure now, he realized with a surge of clarity that displaced everything else from his mind. He'd been put here as bait, and it had worked.

He didn't have much time to agonize over it. In his already-weakened state, the fumes spreading in the room sent him back to sleep after just a few breaths.

*

_October 20 th, 2016_

"How do you like my work?"

Magnus didn't think he needed to grace that with an answer.

He didn't know the man. He hadn't deigned to introduce himself. Even in the certainty that his prisoner had no way of escaping, he hadn't gone that far. Even though he had no qualms about showing him his face, his name remained unknown.

Maybe it was because he wasn't sure if Magnus could do anything with it, even with his hands useless as they were from cuts that went all the way to the bone, several fingers entirely out of commission and the others barely moving and painful enough to make him wish he was unconscious again when he tried anyway.

Maybe he just liked the idea that he controlled what information the warlock got, even though he was destined for death.

That that was what he was planning had been the first thing he had said when Magnus had woken up and focused his eyes on him.

His face appeared no older than thirty, though his eyes had a much older look to them, and shone with a glint that Magnus was tempted to describe as 'madness'. His skin was marked with the black lines of nephilim's runes, many the same that Alec and his friends wore: The Marks of a shadowhunter on field duty.

He was more than that, though.

While Magnus was watching, the man had drawn another ring of shapes and symbols around the circle of sigils that had him as its centerpiece, using chalk for most of it but burning some designs into the hard-packed dirt floor with a stele.

"I've had a friend place a little surprise in you, just in case you think you can out-magic us and fix that," he said, tapping one of Magnus' mangled hands with the tip of his boot.

Magnus bit his lip to keep any sounds of pain safely locked inside. He wasn't going to give the man that satisfaction.

Not yet, anyway.

"I'm not going to kill you, you know," the man said, moving around the circle again for another layer. Blue and white chalk, designs Magnus couldn't see but feel as they were completed.

He raised an eyebrow. Now wasn't that a contradiction of what he'd said before?

The other laughed. "Don't worry. You're still going to die. I'm just not the one who'll do it."

Magnus bit back a comment on how that was very much of a relief, because not dying would have been a horrible thing to happen. He suspected baiting the man would only lead to a more painful death.

"Don't you want to know how?" The man had stopped drawing and come back to Magnus' side, carefully stepping over the completed designs. He squatted down close to where his right hand was tied to a ring anchored in the ground and reached out to test the strength of the bindings.

His hand screeched in protest.

"How?" Magnus ground out. Maybe if he kept talking, he'd stop prodding at him.

"Can you imagine," the man said, calmly shifting forward to place his knee between Magnus' shoulder and elbow to hold his arm down.

Dreading what he was about to see but unable to look away, Magnus watched him draw a ritual dagger and study the blade before putting it against the skin of his prisoner's forearm.

"Can you imagine the power of a demon you can bind with a sacrifice of four nephilim and one of the most powerful warlocks currently in existence? When he isn't drained of blood and kept from wielding his magic, that is. So let's call him one of the potentially most powerful warlocks currently in existence instead, maybe."

Magnus didn't want to imagine that, but his brain helpfully supplied the images anyway. That kind of offering could probably get you the loyal services of not only a greater demon but a demon lord, possibly a demon prince, for as long as you had need of him.

"That'll never work," he said, forcing as much conviction into his voice as he could. "Besides, that kind of demon wouldn't stop at devouring the five of us. It'd gobble you up, too, long before it'd finish your sacrifices and let itself be bound."

"Ah, but that's the beauty of it," the man said. His blade sliced through skin and muscle, leaving behind a track of dark red welling up and lines of searing pain that joined the clamor of Magnus' shredded hands. "I won't be anywhere nearby. Not until it's done. It's all nicely set up, you see."

Magnus felt a shock run through him as he completed the glyph. He could sense blood rushing into his arm, flowing from those cuts faster than their size warranted, anatomically speaking.

"The summoning spell is all set up and timed to go off when the walls between dimensions are the weakest." About to get up again, something drew his attention and made him drop back down, his knee digging hard into Magnus' arm.

There was no doubt in Magnus' mind what it had been: there'd been a twitch of his hand – not much of one, as most of it was beyond anything resembling deliberate movement, but enough to be visible. It hadn't even been a conscious attempt to do anything – merely a reaction to the fresh wounds.

"I've put your friends all in their own convenient little time pockets. They won't die, but they'll wish they would. No company, no food, no water. No way to reach out to anyone. No way to move. How long do you think it'll take for them to go irredeemably insane?" The tip of his dagger stabbed into the side of Magnus' wrist, and the man yanked the blade sideways, cutting through everything in the way and scraping over bone.

Magnus tasted blood in his mouth as he bit down on a scream.

His captor didn't even seem to notice. "Not very long, I think," he answered his own question with a satisfied smirk.

He moved, but only far enough to repeat the procedure on Magnus' left wrist.

This one was worse than the first. His muscles had tensed in anticipation, even though, knowing what that would do, he tried to fight it. He couldn't quite hold back the sounds of pain this time.

"Their screams will lead him right here, you see."

Wiping the blade against the ground, the man stood, lingering only a moment to take in his handiwork before taking a step backwards and completing two lines that closed the inner-most circle.

The power springing up from it added a new layer to the pain. Fed by his blood that was starting to pool on the ground, the binding spells in that circle roared up like fire, leaving him feeling magically burned, though there was no physical heat.

"And he will step into the most powerful binding he'll ever have seen: Fuelled by your blood, and your pain and your desperation."

He completed the second ring and stepped back again to follow up with the third.

"A pity," he noted, putting the chalk down against the floor, not even bothering to check if Magnus was still listening. "But necessary. A new enemy is needed after dear, sweet Clarissa so rashly stabbed her father."

He closed the last lines and pivoted on one foot.

"Enjoy your sanity while it lasts, warlock."

With that, he strode out, extinguishing the light on his way and leaving Magnus alone in the dark.


	14. Chapter 14

_October 23 rd, 2016, evening_

Magnus related his memories of events, leaving away only one thing at first. He wasn't quite sure how to tell them.

It had to be told, though.

He closed his eyes briefly when he was done with his main tale, steeling himself for what was to come. Would they get angry? Insist that he must have seen things after having been hit on the head?

"One other thing," he said, avoiding Alec's eyes. He didn't want to see his reaction when he presented his outrageous claim. In spite of everything, he was loyal to his people. The worst thing that Magnus could imagine that moment was that Alec might believe that he was trying to make him choose between the nephilim and him – the way he had felt, not so long ago, he had to choose between Alec or the downworld.

They waited.

"The men who took me, and the man who set up that basement: They were shadowhunters."

There. It was out.

He had expected many possible reactions. What he hadn't expected was to look into four silent, composed faces. Was there even a hint of relief in Alec's features? Relief at what?

"You're not surprised." It was stating the obvious, but he had to hear it said.

"No." Alec confirmed. "Some of us saw things, too, and we've added up what we have. This wasn't an accident, or a mistake. We were set up. And I think someone tampered with our steles."

Magnus' eyes narrowed at the last. "What do you mean? How?"

"Charlie showed us how to see magic," Clary said when Alec seemed uncertain of how to start.

"Power," Charlie corrected. "I showed you how to see power. Magic's just one type of that."

"Charlie showed us how to see power," Alec repeated. "And the steles we recovered from the cottage look…" He fished for a matching word. "Vile."

Magnus frowned. "Can I see?"

Alec pulled out his stele and held it up. To Magnus' eyes, it looked just like it usually did, shining with the soft power of the adamas it was made of.

"It looks like always to me," Magnus said. He shifted to look at Charlie, who was listening but hadn't moved from her seat. "Can you show me? Or does that go against your duties as our guard?"

She laughed as she came over. "No such thing. Officially, I'm here because I can catch you if something we do accidentally triggers that spell again."

"And unofficially?" Magnus held out his arm, wincing at the way his hand protested being lifted from the bed.

"Unofficially I'm hiding from Allie, because I'm pretty sure she's going to try and feed me again, and I feel like I'm done with eating for today." She took his arm between her hands where the bandages ended and hummed a few notes.

The power Magnus saw didn't change. It was still emanating from the same things as it had before. The difference was that what had previously been the pure light of power had acquired various tinges of color – and those did, indeed, suggest qualities.

He couldn't fault Alec's assessment. The stele stood out between the spells in the room, shining with a powerful – and unpleasant – shade of green.

"They all look like that?" Magnus asked.

The four nodded. Charlie released his arm, and the power returned to its normal, unqualified appearance. He blinked away even that, getting rid of the distraction it posed.

"You can all see that?"

They shook their heads. "Only Alec kept it. It worked for us others for as long as Charlie touched us."

Charlie shrugged when he looked at her. "It's probably because I'm still so attuned to Alec's Song. I played you two together for so long, I think I still have a part of him in me."

That sounded wrong, but Magnus had to grin when he saw Alec's shocked expression.

She visibly fought to keep a straight face. "I mean like an echo of the access to the essence of your soul, Alec. Not a literal part of you. You're not even remotely in my age bracket."

"Your what?"

"Seven years older and seven years younger. Otherwise, we keep our hands off and our parts out of each other outside of ritual. Don't worry about that."

Alec clearly wasn't sure that there was nothing to worry about. He made an effort to return on subject, though. "The steles."

Right. The steles. It made no sense, and Magnus said so. "They didn't intend for any of us to survive, so why tamper with your steles? You said you took them from the cottage. Where did you find them?"

"Some kind of trophy room," Alec said. He sounded distracted already, following the line of thought Magnus had started. They hadn't been meant to recover their steles. There was no point in doing anything with them after laying them out as bait. And why would you tamper with something you were just going to keep as a trophy? "You mean this must have happened before. For whatever reason."

Magnus nodded. "Unless the other things in that room looked the same, and it serves some kind of obscure purpose we aren't thinking of, that would be more logical."

"Great," Jace said, his eye-roll only a little exaggerated. "Another thing to deal with. Just what we needed."

*

"That looks good."

Clary was sitting on Magnus' bed, angling her sketch pad so he could easily see what she was doing.

She'd produced the portrait of a man with a face that was pleasant enough to look at, or would have been if it hadn't been for the malicious gleam in his eyes.

She tore off the paper with a quick motion and handed the sheet to Alec for his inspection. A moment later, her pencil was back on the paper, sketching away furiously again.

The other two moved in to look over Alec's shoulder.

Both shook their heads. "Never seen him," Izzy declared.

"At least not with that face," Jace added. "Considering how long Valentine posed as Michael Wayland, we can't be sure this is his real one."

Alec made a vague but affirming sound. "I don't even see a family resemblance to anyone I know. That might have given us a place to start looking, at least." He studied the portrait, committing every line to memory.

The sound of tearing paper made him look around.

Clary was holding out another sheet to him.

He took it, taking in at the sketch. It showed a man staring down at someone, scowling. He didn't appear a bit more friendly than the one she had drawn to Magnus' instructions.

He looked a lot more familiar, though.

"This one I know."

He handed the sheet to Izzy and Jace, who nodded.

"So we do have a place to start?" Clary asked, sounding hopeful.

"Not really," Jace told her. "He's Consul Malachi's nephew. You don't accuse someone from that kind of family without good, hard proof. He'd claim someone was using his face as a glamor."

"Or he'd claim Clary was still drugged and there was no way she wasn't just dreaming and had seen a picture of him somewhere," Izzy added.

They all started at an unexpected knock on the door.

Alec had expected either Allie or one of the aunties, but it was Peggi who entered when Magnus called her in. She was holding up a paper bag.

"Charlie, Allie's looking for you," she noted as she came over to the bed.

Charlie rolled her eyes and stood, stretching slowly. "How's she _looking for me_?" she asked. "She knows exactly where I am."

Peggi gave her a grin. "She didn't think she should interrupt the plotting, but she thought if I was coming in here anyway, I might as well send you out. It seems Auntie Meredith sent pie for everyone, so if our new guest would like something more substantial than soup as a late-night snack…" she trailed off, looking at Magnus, who responded with a bright smile.

"That sounds delicious," he claimed.

Given the time he'd been held, Alec assumed anything would sound delicious to him, but he had to admit that he, too, didn't feel like a bit of pie would hurt. There was one thing to be said for Gale pies: They _were_ delicious.

"I'll be right back," Charlie announced, suddenly moving much faster than before. "With the pie."

Izzy watched her go, eyebrows raised.

Peggi smirked at her reaction. "Auntie Meredith's meat pies are special," she explained. "Not something you get very often. Some of her ingredients are … exquisite." She upended her bag on the bedside table and picked some smaller packages out of the resulting heap, handing them to Alec to be put away.

"Auntie Gwen called me to say you needed uncharmed, fresh bandages. So here you go – unopened, uncharmed. Put them somewhere no one will accidentally charm them."

He nodded, opening a drawer although he had no idea what was inside of it.

Someone had left comic books there, with a slightly scorched edge along the top. There also were a bag of mints and a couple of pencils keeping them company. He decided nothing in there was going to harm a few packs of sealed bandages, and dropped them in.

In the meantime, Peggi had ripped open the end of one of the cardboard boxes she had brought.

"Here's some Advil for you," she said, turning to Magnus. "No one ordered this, but given what happened to you, I assume you need it."

 He gave her an uncomprehending look.

"Pain relief," she clarified, realizing he couldn't place the name.

The patient seemed amused. "Mundane painkillers? I don't think…"

She shrugged. "If you'd rather be in pain, suit yourself. I don't really mind one way or the other, but you might find it easier to sleep tonight if you can at least take the edge off. I don't know how close a Painless charm comes to a Healing charm as far as that hex inside you is concerned, but we probably don't need to find out."

She had a point, and Alec said so.

Magnus said nothing. He watched her hold up another box.

"This one isn't optional, though," she continued, pulling out the silvery strips inside. "You'd better take these, and take them as instructed."

Alec tried to get a look at the box, but the name written on it told him nothing. Mundane pharmaceuticals were not something he had the least experience with.

"Antibiotics," Peggi said by way of explanation.

"I'm the High Warlock of Brooklyn," Magnus pointed out, earning a blank look from her. "What makes you think I need those?"

She snorted. "How long has it been since you've had an injury you didn't heal with magic instantaneously?"

There was a vague gesture from Magnus, and that was probably as much due to the fact that he didn't remember a precise date as it was because his hands and wrists were immobilized.

"See?" She said. "You may remember what happened to mundanes, as you call them, in the past. I've never heard of magic re-growing appendages, so unless you're sure you don't mind that you may lose a few fingers to gangrene, I'd really suggest you take them."

Magnus scowled as he considered that.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked her eventually.

Peggi laughed. "Pharmacist. But that's about as close as you'll come to medical personnel, unless you count the aunties," she admitted. "I guess we _could_ bring in a real doctor if you want one, but he'll probably want you in an actual hospital, and put some actual silk or nylon thread in your hands, and also there's that little problem that real doctors always want to run your blood through their little machines, and then they want to study the hell out of you."

"Which is why we stay the hell out of hospitals," Charlie said, entering the door carrying a large tray with several plates of pie. "Are you staying for dinner, Peggi?"

"For Auntie Meredith's meat pie? Hell yeah!" Peggi turned back to Magnus. "So, what shall it be?"

He took another second, but it seemed more like show than anything else. "I'll take the antibiotic," he agreed. "And the pain-relief. And the pie."

Peggi quickly filled Alec in on the required dosages, while Charlie pressed the other three into service moving furniture so their group could eat somewhat comfortably in the guest room. 

*

The pie was exquisite. It was really more a snack than a meal, spread out across so many people, but it was unlike anything they had tasted before. The flavor suggested chicken – almost, but not quite.

"Are there any special herbs or something in this?" Alec asked, trying to guess at what the extra was. He alternated taking bites of his own with feeding pie to Magnus, who somehow managed to turn the entire arrangement more playful than it should have been in a room full of people. Alec didn't mind. He certainly didn't do anything to counteract it either.

The other shadowhunters had only a brief grin to spare for that, and the Gales – or at least Charlie and Peggi – didn't even seem to consider it anything out of the ordinary.

"It's the basilisk," Magnus told him, sounding quite seriously. "It adds a certain spice that chicken just can't match."

"Yeah, right," Alec said, laughing. "Basilisk. What else would it be?"

"Auntie Meredith has a thing for basilisk pie with lemon pepper stuffing," Charlie informed him. She was keeping a perfectly straight face as she spoke. "Ever since that time she had to take care of one that had escaped from the Underrealm. I bet Jack picked this one up when he went back to distract his uncles."

Alec stared at his fork. "Basilisk?" he repeated.

"I'm pretty sure we've eaten worse than basilisk," Jace pointed out.

"I wouldn't call the basilisk _bad_ ," Izzy corrected him. Then, turning to Charlie, she added: "Would your Auntie Meredith share the recipe, do you think?"

Jace and Alec groaned. "Not with you!"

Charlie, clearly reminded of her own failed efforts at pie, chuckled.

"Hey!" Magnus protested at Alec disposed of the basilisk pie on his fork by putting it in his mouth and chewing. "That was my turn."

"So," Peggi said once they had sorted that out and were back on track with their shared meal, "I hear you're suspecting a conspiracy among your own people?"

"News travels fast around here," Jace returned evenly.

The older woman shrugged. "We have aunties. With telephones. Also What'sApp."

Alec didn't know what What'sApp was, but Clary apparently did. In any case, the way she choked on her pie for a moment was very well timed to the statement.

"I'm sure Allie will let you stay if you need to lay low and get away from them."

"Yeah, no." That was an option Alec wasn't even going to consider. "We do need to get back home. We were just hoping we could figure out a bit more of what's going on first, so we know what we'll be going home to."

Both Gales nodded thoughtfully. "Let's hear what you have. Sometimes an outsider's input can be valuable."

It couldn't hurt in any case. They took turns telling what they knew that wasn't added to Graham's documents yet. Only when they were done did they realize that they were going to have to tell it all again, since adding it to the overviews they already had was surely the sensible thing to do.

"You realize that this means that on All Hallows Eve, we'll have an epically pissed-off demon host in Calgary looking for its sacrifices, right?" Peggi pointed out soberly when they finished.

They looked at each other mutely for a few moments.

She was right, they realized. They hadn't even thought of that aspect yet. If the summoning spell was set up to trigger on All Hallows' Eve – and that was the closest date on which the barriers between dimensions would be naturally weakened – then the Gales would be dealing with a demon invasion right on their doorstep soon enough.

"It's a good night for sacrifices, too," Charlie added. "The only way it could be even better would be if the new moon was a day later. But the night right after the new moon isn't bad for workings either. And it's the second new moon in one month, too."

The next decision was easy to make. If it meant that he would neither have to leave Magnus alone in Calgary, nor take him back to New York while he was unable to cast any spells in his defense, that didn't exactly make it any harder.

"We're staying that long, then. If you'll have us. We'll help you get rid of whatever comes through."

"I'm sure ritual can deal with a few demons," Charlie pointed out. "And Jack can eat a couple, too. But I'm also sure Allie will be happy if you're staying a bit longer. Though if you're planning to be _in_ ritual for a combined strike at whatever comes through, that'll probably require some planning."

Discussion of the particulars of that was put off for later. Alec was starting to wonder at the way the Gales used the word "ritual". He had a hunch that it didn't involve standing around an elaborate pentagram and listening to Magnus recite in Latin until something happened. He was ready to do whatever they had to in order to keep these people safe – especially if taking them in was what had put them at risk to begin with – but he also started to feel like maybe this was the time to avoid making any rash promises.

"You know what's odd?" Jace asked as he finished up his pie.

The others looked at him, waiting.

"According to Magnus, our demon-summoning guy regretted that Clary killed Valentine. And we have the Malachi connection to the Circle. Yet they want to summon demons? You'd think someone who likes to play with demons wouldn't be happy about the Circle and Valentine, and vice versa."

There was a brief pause as they considered.

"I might be able to help out with that one," Peggi said when none of the nephilim showed any inclination to provide a theory, and Magnus was watching them with curiosity, rather than adding any thoughts of his own.

"What's the best way to keep a large and not very homogeneous group of people in line without applying any undue force that will eventually lead to more rebellion?"

They looked at her now, thinking, the expressions on their faces suggesting that they were coming up with explanations and discarding them.

Izzy was the first to nod to herself. "A common enemy."

"Just so," Peggi confirmed. "Like every other dystopian sci-fi novel will tell you. Just look at 1984. You get—" She broke off when she saw that naming the title had caused only confusion in her audience. She sighed. "Don't you guys read?"

"Yeah," Jace said, once again. "Actually we do. Apparently not the right things, though."

About to reply, Peggi closed her mouth again as he shook his head, accompanied by a quick gesture, cutting her off before she had even started.

"You know what?" His voice had a challenging quality to it. "Get me those books and I'll read them. That one, and the one with machin shin, and the one with the charms Clary quoted from."

"You don't know what you're saying." Charlie made an effort to keep a straight face, but she was audibly talking around a grin.

"I'm serious," Jace insisted.

"No, you're actually Jace," Charlie and Clary shot back as one, before looking at each other and losing the battle against laughter the moment their eyes met.

"Let me guess," Alec said. "Another book we didn't read?"

Dropping her fork onto her empty plate, Charlie shook her head. "Same one as the quote Clary had earlier. Except it's more complicated than that because that's not even in the book."

"Common enemy." Jace tried to bring the conversation back on topic. "Keeping people together. You think the Circle was a common enemy and someone's trying to raise a demon horde to serve as a new one?"

She nodded. That was exactly what she'd been thinking. "While you have a tiny group, just being that group apart from everyone else will add cohesion, but when you reach a certain number of people – and they're immersed in contact with other people and getting ideas from them – then it's getting harder and harder to not have the community rules questioned. Unless you give people something more important to think about than whether things really need to be the way they've always been, just because they've always been that way."

"There aren't that many shadowhunters," Jace pointed out. "Barely enough to cover everything, and we're not exactly growing more."

Alec shook his head at him. "No. She's right. We're spread out around the world. New York isn't going to be the only place where local shadowhunters have contacts and dealings and relationships with the downworld, or the mundanes around them. Then people from everywhere meet in Idris. And if we're feeling we're not enough, that's because we're spread out all over the globe. Strictly by numbers, we're a lot…"

"So what keeps you Gales together?" Clary asked, focusing on Charlie. "Who's your common enemy?"

Moving her head from side to side thoughtfully, Charlie looked as if she was either thinking about the answer, or thinking about whether she should tell the truth or make something up. "We don't need one," she said eventually. "Not really, anyway. We're few enough that the differences within the family are outweighed by _being_ family. And when the family reaches critical mass, a branch splits off and moves elsewhere, starting a new enclave. Up until the most recent split, all ties and contact between the home and the colony would then be severed, and both groups would be comfortably below the threshold again."

"I don't like the common enemy theory," Izzy declared, bringing them back on topic. "I mean, it makes sense. I just don't like it. That means some people very high up would be involved. And may have happily watched Valentine and the Circle rise up and return."

"And may have actually supported Valentine and the Circle's rise and return," Jace added.

Alec brought his empty plate over to the table. "We kind of knew that some high-up people had to be involved based on the Little-Idris wards on our prisons," he pointed out. "We'll have to be careful when we go back. If the wrong people find out what we know and what we suspect, the next common enemy everyone is going to hunt will be us."

"They surely won't just welcome us with open arms and congratulate us on escaping." Jace caught Alec's eyes and held them. "We weren't chosen for this because we're the best-looking or sweetest-tasting shadowhunters there are and thus the most attractive bait. I bet they picked us to get us out of the way because we were too involved in what happened with Valentine, and saw too much."

"And because we have too many ties outside of the shadowhunters," Clary said.

Alec gave a small nod. "All of that."

"What do you mean by 'Little-Idris wards'?" Magnus asked, the beginnings of a frown creasing his forehead.

The frown deepened as they described the details of the circles they had been kept in, and even more so when Charlie collected Graham's phone and showed him the pictures.

For a moment, when he looked at Alec helplessly tied down inside the elaborate design, his face showed fury so pure that no one would have been surprised if he'd managed to whip up a fireball entirely bypassing his hands.

He visibly clamped down on the reaction.

"You realize that those are partly warlock spells?" he asked.

They hadn't realized that.

"When you look at strong wards, no matter where, chances are always that there are warlocks involved. There's a reason the institute pays me for security services." His mouth twitched into a sneer. "Used to pay me for security services. Anyway, special wards tend to equal warlock. Some of those runes there are actually sigils that belong in spells."

Alec blinked. "You mean they have a warlock working with them? Who might that be?"

"I'd try whoever is keeping the wards around Idris polished and shining first," Magnus suggested. "But I will definitely call in some favors when we're back. I'll want to know for certain who's involved in this."

"Promise me you won't do anything before your hands are back to normal." While Alec left it unsaid, there was an unmistakable 'or else we're not leaving Calgary before they are' overlaid on the statement.

"I'm not stupid, Alexander," Magnus said. There was a fond smile on his face, though.

"We probably should—" Jace began.

They didn't find out what exactly it was they probably should be doing, owing to Jack's appearance in the half-open door.

The Dragon Prince had changed out of the clothes he'd made for himself in the park and was now wearing green flannel pajamas and an expression that spoke of deep, abject misery.

"Did you eat _all_ the basilisk pie?"

*

They had broken up their meeting not long after Jack's arrival. Charlie had suggested that he distract himself from the loss of the pie by getting the books Jace had wanted, and Jack had left with a sudden smirk – only to return less than five minutes later, carrying a pile of books and putting them down in front of the Nephilim.

"1984, Harry Potter and Wheel of Time," he had declared.

"In other words: Manipulation of people, Wingardium Leviosa and Machin Shin," Charlie had added.

Jace had stared.

"I thought you were talking about books," he'd said. "This is half a library!"

He had collected them, however, and balanced them into the living room. Alec could only hope that if he was planning to read through the night, he'd be using a night vision charm instead of keeping everyone else awake with him.

Alec had settled into bed with Magnus, whose body relaxed noticeably at the contact.

Just as he had arranged himself so that he could rub at least some of the kinks out of Magnus' shoulders, there was another knock.

Groaning slightly about the new interruption, he called the visitor in.

"Don't worry," Allie said the moment she had opened the door. "I'll just be a moment. I brought you something."

Alec twisted around to look at her.

She crossed the room briskly, carrying a folded piece of brightly colored cloth. A blanket, he thought at first, before his brain specified: A quilt. Two quilts, actually.

Allie unfolded one, holding it up to show it to him. "Everyone in our family has these," she explained. "We make them for our children. These don't have current owners. I thought you might have use for them."

Every inch of it was filled with charms, worked into the cloth, sewn on, embroidered and stitched together out of differently colored fabric. Shifting into his new skill of seeing power, Alec could tell that they were placed strategically to make for the best results, to support each other's power as much as they could.

There was quite a variety of charms on there that he knew as runes, in addition to a good number he had never seen before. There were protections, both from entirely physical dangers and from nightmares, charms that would make sure that sleep was deep and restorative, charms that sent messages as concise as "good luck".

"I made sure to pick some that have no healings on them," Allie said. "Just in case."

"They'll be wonderful to sleep under." Magnus sounded about ready to go to sleep. "Thank you."

With a happy smile, Allie wished them a good night and left it to Alec to swap the duvets for the quilts.

Alec felt the charms settle on him, leaving him with a warm, comfortable feeling of safety and home.

For a moment, he thought he could smell Idris around him. That wasn't surprising, he guessed. Idris was probably the last place where he'd ever felt entirely and unquestionably safe – as a child, before his runing ceremony. Before the first time he'd been taken to New York by his parents. Before his first exposure to the world outside those wards.

But those wards had acquired a much more uncomfortable connotation since they'd been used as a prison on him. He didn't think he'd ever enter Idris again without thinking that, possibly, whoever was keeping the wards  around the little country strong may have had a hand in trapping the four of them.

"Sleep, Alexander," Magnus whispered, shifting ever so slightly to get them into closer contact. "Tomorrow is another day with plenty of time to worry. Tonight is for sleep."

He was right, of course.


	15. Chapter 15

_October 24 th, 2016_

Magnus woke up to the feeling that as far as he was concerned, things could stay exactly like this for another two or three hundred years. He was wrapped in warmth, comfort and safety. His head was cushioned on Alec's chest, their bodies perfectly molded against each other. Alec's arm was around him, his hand buried in Magnus' hair, fingers tousling strands that for once were not styled after Charlie's magic removal chord had stripped the hair spray and dye off of him along with the magic.

He shifted, just slightly, and Alec's fingers stilled.

"Mmmh. Don’t stop," Magnus muttered sleepily. It would be nice to go right back to sleep like this, wrapped in comfortable magic and Alec.

Magnus could feel his smile as Alec resumed the stroking. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't," Magnus said. "I was ready to wake up." He felt some slight regret at admitting to that. It would have been nice to pretend that this would go on for a long, long time – but it was probably time to get up and start working on a plan. Or several plans.

Alec, it seemed, had no intention of doing any such thing in the very near future, though, and Magnus wasn't going to press the matter.

Unfortunately, it only took a few minutes before his hands caught up with the fact that he was now awake. They started out with a dull pain that increased quickly once his mind latched on to it, resonating to every heartbeat.

He tried to find a better position for them, but all that did was make it worse.

Eventually, he cracked open an eye to look up at Alec. "Is it time to get up?"

"Probably." The corner of Alec's mouth twitched upwards. "But no one has tried to beat down the door yet to get us to come out."

"I should take those mundane pills," Magnus pointed out.

Alec understood immediately. He untangled himself carefully, letting Magnus shift from him to the actual pillow, and rummaged in the drawer with one hand until he had both boxes.

"So they actually work?" he asked, checking the notes scribbled on them again to make sure he had the instructions right.

"Not as well as a spell would, but they work."

Magnus' attempt at sitting up properly was cut short. He'd hoped that a night's sleep would take care of the dizziness, but apparently bodies replenished their blood more slowly than that if they were nearly drained of it for a while. He had to admit that he wasn't really sure how long a recovery he had to expect if he couldn't heal himself.

It wasn't just the physical effect from the blood loss, either. It was also that his magic had been drained along with his blood. At the moment, he couldn't have healed himself even without a curse keyed into healing magic planted inside him. The effects of the magic depletion and the effects of the blood depletion seemed to feed each other.

He sighed as he dropped back onto his pillow. "I don't think I'll be getting up for breakfast," he admitted.

"I'll see if anything's ready," Alec offered. He had just climbed into the jeans he'd been wearing the day before when someone knocked on the door quite forcefully.

"I'm already on my way!" Alec called out.

"If you were going to the kitchen, your journey will be a short one," came Charlie's voice from the other side of the door. "For I come bearing gifts – or at least food. If you were going to the bathroom, at least let me in so I can put the gifts down."

Alec opened the door with a flourish, admitting an overloaded breakfast tray closely followed by Charlie. Magnus stared.

"Not that I'm complaining," he told her, "But isn't that a bit much for two people and one breakfast?"

Charlie shrugged. "Allie thinks you need sustenance to get your strength back. I think anything that isn't eaten now will make a reappearance on someone's plate later, or end as a dragon snack. It's not like Jack ever isn’t hungry."

*

They took their time with breakfast, and it wasn't just because of the break they took while Alec explained exactly why he was examining the pancakes quite so closely.

Izzy appeared in the doorway as they were finishing up.

"Allie is going to take us shopping," she said.

Alec looked a lot less happy about that than his sister.

"She thinks if we're going to stay until after Halloween, we will want clothes that actually fit, and she's right. And since the Aunties get all nervous when Jack throws around his epic clothes-production skills needlessly, we're getting to have a look at downtown Calgary." She rolled her eyes at his lack of enthusiasm. "Come on, Alec. It'll be fun."

"Yeah," Alec said drily. "Shopping without any money always is great fun."

Izzy was unperturbed by that. "Actually, I think Allie intends to pay for them. There was talk about how normally she'd send Katie or Melissa on that kind of errand, but with five of us needing things Allie's the better choice because her Gale luck is stronger – whatever that means. Anyway, we can send them money to pay them back for everything when we're back home."

It sounded like this had been discussed. For a moment, Alec looked like he regretted not going out to breakfast with everyone else.

"Izzy, what makes you think we're going to have any money when we get back home?" he asked, his voice and face dead serious. "Some people may be extremely unhappy to see us alive and well. We don't know what they come up with next."

Her lips twitched. "Actually, Allie said we could work it off, too." She continued quickly when Alec opened his mouth to respond. "Help out in the store, babysit, teach Charlie's sisters some actual fighting skills … I kind of promised to do that anyway. Alec, I need proper shoes."

Magnus winced in sympathy as he looked at what Izzy was wearing. Used to high heels as she was, her feet were probably giving her hell for walking on flat soles all the time right now.

"Go, Alec," he said. "See if you can bring me something, too. I'd like to not have to go out like this when we go to vanquish the demon host." He vaguely indicated his state of complete undress.

By the look on Alec's face, it wasn't hard to guess that he was presently imagining Magnus borrowing Michael's or Graham's clothes.

It also wasn't hard to guess that his lack of enthusiasm was actually born from a reluctance to leave Magnus more than anything else.

"What will you do while I'm gone?" Alec winced as he heard the tone of his own voice. "Ouch. I didn't mean it to sound like that. But you'll be—"

"I'll be alright, Alexander," Magnus promised him. "Bored, maybe, but alright. I'll probably sleep away most of the time anyway."

"Besides," Izzy said. "Katie volunteered to stay with Magnus in case he needs anything." She gestured to someone down the hallway and stepped aside a moment later to let one of the Gale women in. Katie, Magnus concluded.

She gave Magnus an appreciative smile as she entered the room and came over to the bed, standing on the side opposite Alec. "I promise, I'm perfectly capable of filling up a glass of water or turning pages in a book. Or sitting outside and waiting for someone to call me if I'm needed. Though I thought that if you feel up to it, we could use the time to go through the notes we have and see what your input is."

He inclined his head at that. It would be a good use of the time, though he wasn't sure how long he would be able to focus without a break.

Their eyes met, and he saw hers widen a little at the close-up look at his warlock mark.

Magnus looked away again. People often didn't react too well to his cat eyes. Usually, he didn't much care, or pretended not to, though he glamored them up and avoided the problem. Right now, with his magic so incredibly low and the world spinning every time he tried to get into a more vertical position, he felt uneasy about constantly reminding everyone of what he was.

Descendants of the Horned God they might be, and therefore even be counted as some variety of warlock by the Nephilim if the stars aligned just right, but there had been one thing in the stories he had heard about the Gales and that he had, until just the previous night, discarded as pure myth.

What he hadn't told Alec was that all of those stories he knew that mentioned them agreed on one thing: They hunted warlocks and killed them where they found them.

"Pretty," Katie noted.

Magnus sighed. "Creepy, you mean."

A frown darkened Katie's face as she shook her head slightly. "Jack has golden eyes. There's nothing creepy about that."

"They're cat eyes," Magnus pointed out. Now he wasn't sure if she was being dense on purpose, or if that part of the stories had indeed only been myth. "You know…mutation due to having a demon as my direct ancestor. Most people find that creepy."

"What?" She sounded incredulous, as if she could hardly believe her ears. "You think I've got a problem with your eyes?"

She dropped on the edge of the bed, coming closer to his level, catching and holding his eyes with hers. "Magnus, in this family, men periodically grow antlers and have a go at each other with them. They've been known to kill each other from time to time, and anyone who comes between them, too. You have _cat eyes_. What are you going to do with those? Look at us adorably until we scratch your ears and rub your belly? You want to scare us, you've got to do better than _that._ "

Alec glared at her from Magnus' other side. "You are not going to scratch his ears or rub his belly," he declared darkly.

"Oh?" Katie asked. "And who's going to stop me?"

"I will." It was almost a growl.

"You and what army?" Katie reached out towards Magnus, though she was keeping a close eye on his reaction, ready to pull back if he gave any indication that he was unhappy with how this was progressing.

Magnus didn't move. If anything, he looked just a bit amused.

Alec leaned over to push her hand away.

She shifted, the motion calculated to make him overbalance.

He grabbed for her as he fell across Magnus' legs, pulling her down with him. The next moment, she had a hold on him, keeping him from getting back up. He twisted with a displeased sound, trying to return the favor and felt helpless giggling rise in him as he realized how ridiculous the situation was.

Katie didn't even pretend she wasn't finding this disproportionally funny, and a glance at Magnus confirmed that the High Warlock of Brooklyn was, in fact, shaking with amusement, one wrapped hand thrown up to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes.

Izzy leaned in the doorframe grinning at their antics. It was Clary who interrupted them, coming over from the living room with her best attempt at a stern expression. "We should get going," she announced. "Allie would like to be back in time to feed the boys."

*

They got their first impression of what "Gale luck" meant when they came downstairs. It was the first time Jace and Clary had the leisure to actually inspect the magical mirror in the hallway. Unsurprisingly, it showed them with the same huge wings it did Alec and Izzy, though Clary's were a shining copper and Jace's bright gold, like sun reflected on polished jewelry.

"Show-off," Clary muttered at the sight.

Allie laughed and continued towards the store.

"Isn't the car out back?" Izzy asked.

"It is," Allie confirmed. "I just have a hunch that a small detour would do us some good."

The nephilim looked at each other, eyebrows raised and various degrees of confusion on their faces. Were these people ever going to not be strange?

They followed her, though.

The store was quiet and empty, as it should be since it was usually closed on Mondays. Turning on his power-vision skill, Alec saw the green glow around various of the artifacts in the room. There were a surprising number of them, including a great many that didn't look like anything out of the ordinary at all to the unaided eye.

A man and a woman were standing outside the shop window, looking at the display.

The Clearsight charm suggested that they were exactly what they appeared to be: a couple out for a stroll. At least Alec couldn't see any indication that anything was unusual about them.

Allie unlocked the front door and stuck her head outside.

The two turned, their faces lighting up with expectant smiles as they spotted her.

"Did you want to look at it close-up?" Allie asked, indicating the book they had studied through the window. "Since I'm already down here, you may as well come in."

They didn't wait for another invitation. Allie gestured towards the book, and Alec stooped to pick it out of the display. It was a heavy, leather-bound volume with a distinctly green glow and had a little price tag that quoted a number barely short of reaching four digits stuck in the upper right corner. A charm was sketched centered on the side that had faced the window. He thought he understood some of the components, but the entire thing didn't make sense to him yet.

He was about to hand the book to Allie, but she indicated the couple with a motion of her head, and he turned to them, watching as they reverently picked the volume from his hands and opened it, turning the pages slowly and studying the illuminations.

They were magnificent, and the quality was amazing. Alec thought that this kind of spellbook would have been the perfect gift for Magnus if he had had the money to pay for it.

In contrast to him, the couple didn't seem at all perturbed by the price tag.

It appeared that they had even relied on some luck of their own, coming to the store on a morning on which it was closed with the money to buy the thing they had already decided they wanted in case it turned out to just as nice close-up as it was from a distance.

Or maybe that was part of the Gale Luck and they had simply acquired a small fortune somewhere that morning and decided to spend it right away.

Whichever it was, a wad of cash changed hands, and so did the book.

Allie smiled after them as they went.

"They'll put it to good purposes," she said, dividing the bills in her hand into smaller stacks.

Alec raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"We charm them," Allie said. "To make sure they go to people who know how to use them and who have a track record of not doing anything immensely stupid or malicious with them."

Right. Why had he even asked?

*

Gale Luck, as they were soon to find out, was more than just an amount of money showing up when they had to get outfits for five people.

It was also that the things that fit them best were on sale, or came with free accessories, or both; it meant that the sweater in the color Clary like best had been sorted in a wrong shelf and therefore was the only one in her size still available; it meant that a forced detour due to a blocked street took them past a thrift store that happened to sell what was nearly a precise twin of Jace's favorite – and now-gone – jacket.

It meant always getting the last free parking space; it meant that the only time they had to stand in line, it gave Alec the opportunity to spot the perfect shirt for Magnus.

"It's not always this extreme," Allie told them when asked about it. "It's less strong the farther we get away from our home. And it's strongest for me because I'm the family's anchor to Calgary – though the aunties surely could get the same effect with some charms. Actually, they could have probably gotten most of your things for free that way."

"Then why didn't we bring them?" Jace had asked.

Allie had given him a disapproving look. "Because we didn't need to."

With all the Gale Luck in the game, the money from the antique spellbook went a very long way, leaving each of them with a change of clothes to wear into public, something comfortable that could double as pajamas, shoes or boots and a jacket, as well as some accessories.

Alec wondered what Magnus was going to say when he presented his choices to him, and hoped that Gale Luck worked as well when you had to decide which things you were going to make your boyfriend wear for the next ten days.

He stopped in surprise when he entered the apartment along with the others. He had gotten used to seeing all kinds of people – and Seelie – in the living room, but he hadn't expected to find Magnus there already.

Magnus had acquired pajama bottoms and someone's dressing gown and was comfortably reclining in the overstuffed armchair.

Someone had styled his hair and put the red highlights back into it.

Considering her special relationship with _hair_ , that someone had probably been Charlie.

Presently, Charlie and Katie had covered the table in a variety of cosmetics, and Charlie was just holding up a small container for Magnus' inspection.

Alec crossed the room and leaned over the side of the armchair across from her to distract Magnus from the paints and powders with a long, slow kiss.

They were both smiling when they broke apart, and Alec perched on the armrest while Katie shifted to make space for him.

"It's not that I'm not happy to see this," Alec told Magnus. "But are you supposed to be up?"

Magnus shrugged and leaned in Alec's direction. "I'm not strictly speaking 'up'," he claimed. "I'm resting in a padded monstrosity and waiting for your return while these two good women have done their best to fix what Charlie undid yesterday."

Alec squinted at the arrangement on the table and the tools in Charlie's hand. "I doubt the wisdom of letting _them_ near your face with anything they can draw charms in."

"They're good charms," Magnus said, raising one hand to brush aside the fabric draped over his shoulder to reveal a small Stamina drawn just below his collarbone.

The other man scowled. "Wasn't that an unnecessary risk?" The previous cases of Gales putting charms on Magnus notwithstanding, Alec still felt nervous about the principle.

"It's not a healing charm," Charlie said.

"They put them on everything, including Seelie and Leprechauns and Mundanes," Magnus pointed out at the same time. "Why would they hurt a warlock?"

It was hard to argue with that, especially in light of the evidence. "I still don't like the idea of Charlie or Katie putting a … a brush or a pen or whatever to your face." He was talking around a grin now, though. His mind had just helpfully supplied a few suggestions of what kinds of charms _he_ could put on Magnus… once Magnus' hands were better, of course, and he had fully recovered from his ordeal.

"Well, he's not going to do anything with these hands for a while," Katie pointed out. "And since almost everyone else is currently busy, and Joe's not the make-up-y type, there's not much of a choice. That is, unless _you_ want to do it?"

Magnus raised his eyebrows at that. There was a distinct challenge in his eyes.

"Fine." That was almost a growl. Alec reached for the implements Charlie held. "You'll have to tell me what to do."

*

Make-up, Alec found out, was hard. In fact, after several false starts he was becoming intimately familiar with the various ways of removing failed make-up. At one point, Charlie, under much giggling on her side and eye-rolling on Magnus', showed him a charm to take care of that.

He had no idea how Magnus ever managed to get ready in the morning if he had to do all of _that_. Right now, he felt like make-up should require at least a full art degree and a five-year apprenticeship.

"Tell me you're just having fun at my expense and this is not really how you do it," Alec said, torn between amusement and frustration, as he looked at another failed attempt.

This time Magnus did the laughing while Charlie rolled her eyes.

"That is totally how you do it," Izzy said.

"Mm-hm," Clary added, nodding serenely. They had come over to watch.

Actually, everyone currently in the apartment had come over to watch him fail at a task most of them accomplished while half asleep. He was quickly acquiring a new respect for people who managed to paint extra faces on their default faces and make them look attractive.

The only ones currently not standing around them and giving good advice – or _advice_ in any case, since there was a general consensus that none of Jace's advice was _good_ – were the three taking care of lunch: Allie, Graham and Joe.

"You know, _I_ can do that in less than ten minutes," Magnus claimed when Alec sighed once again.

"Not with those hands," Katie pointed out, just as Alec said evenly: "That's because you cheat. You use magic."

"Do not," Magnus claimed.

"Beg to differ," Charlie threw in. "If you hadn't used magic, it wouldn't have come off with the rest."

"Busted." Jace was chuckling as he walked over to start distributing the plates someone had just put on the large table.

"Alec, I think it's time to hand over to one of us now," Izzy noted. "Magnus would probably like to be done before lunch."

Magnus grinned at that. "Your sister is right, Alexander," he confirmed. "Go and practice on your own face a bit, and let someone else finish this."

'Finish' was a bit of an exaggeration, since it was barely started, but everyone had the good grace to not insist on proper terminology.

Alec wondered if he should actually take that advice. He wasn't much of a make-up person – dark elegance was more his thing than Magnus' glitter and flashiness – but acquiring some skill might not hurt, just in case he needed it at some point. And skills were there to be acquired, after all.

He traded places with Izzy, who made short work of the task at hand, commenting what she did for Alec's sake.

*

Jace made a face when he spotted what was on the stove.

"You're not big on spaghetti, I take it?" Joe asked. He was far too observant for a leprechaun in Jace's opinion.

Jace shrugged.

Allie frowned. "How can you not be big on spaghetti?"

"It's not the spaghetti as such," Jace said. "I love spaghetti. In theory."

"And in practice?"

In practice, he would have liked to forget that spaghetti even existed. "In practice, the man who cooked me spaghetti when I was a boy and who I thought was my father turned out to be this insane, crazy, evil murderer. And you know what one of the first things he did after he made me come with him a few months ago under threat of killing my friends otherwise was?"

It took him a second to realize that the anger in Allie's eyes was _for_ him, rather than _at_ him. "He made you spaghetti?" she guessed.

Jace nodded. "After posing as Clary, taking me on a chase across his ship, deglamoring and having me thoroughly beaten for it, then healed."

He didn't know what he was hoping her reaction would be, but he knew that the last thing he wanted was for her to feel guilty about cooking the wrong lunch now. It wasn't like she could have known that, and it was harmless enough a dish.

She did no such thing. "There's pie in the fridge if you prefer," she said instead.

"Nah, I'm good." Really, anything else would have been silly. His next thought brought a grin to his face. "What do you do if one of the spaghetti accidentally falls into a fire charm and burns down the house?"

"Don't suggest that in front of the children," Graham cautioned.

Allie poured the pasta into a bowl without any concern for unplanned charms. "It doesn't happen that way," she said. "There's no such thing as accidental charms. Lack of intent, remember?"

*

The boys were finally all in bed and everyone who wasn't sleeping either in the apartment or next door had left. The remaining group had gathered in the living room.

Charlie had turned the TV to something that seemed to be about warlocks in space who were also fighting with a bad imitation of seraph blades.

None of them paid a lot of attention to that. Alec and Magnus were snuggled into one corner of the sofa, apparently entirely content there on their own within the crowd, and looking as if they still each needed to reassure themselves the other one was there and safe and reasonably well by not breaking contact for any more than they absolutely had to. Allie and Graham were leaning into each other, too, on the sofa opposite them, though they were being less nauseatingly sweet about it. Of course they'd also been married for a number of years. Jack and Charlie had moved apart the moment Clary had discovered a deck of playing cards left behind by one of the children who had been in the apartment earlier that day, and Allie had suggested they play it.

"He counts cards anyway," Charlie had said, pointing at her husband. "He doesn’t need to be able to look into my hand on top of that."

Izzy hadn't ever played that game before, or even seen cards that odd, but the rules seemed easy enough and she'd given it a try.

Jace had declared that he had no time for card games, and with a glance at the crowded conditions around the table, taken himself to one of the high-pile rugs on the floor, where he now lay stretched out and about to finish the first book he had taken off the stack.

They'd actually had to tell him to stop reading and get some sleep the night before when, after switching the lights for a Nightvision charm on his eyelids as kindly suggested by Charlie before she and Jack retreated to their room, the constant rustling was still keeping them awake.

He'd seemed entirely engrossed in the story, though, and she wondered if she should follow his example and grab that book before it went back onto a shelf.

She played a color change card and asked for blue, since she thought she had reason to assume Allie's hand was mostly made up of red at this point.

A grin when Allie drew a card turned into a scowl when the new card turned out to be blue indeed – and the type that reversed direction and now told everyone that Izzy, too, actually did not have any blue cards in her hand.

"Is this part of Gale Luck?" She asked as she drew a yellow seven.

Allie laughed. "Possibly a little," she admitted.

"Just get used to the knowledge that no matter if Monopoly or UNO, Allie's going to win," Graham suggested. "Whether she wants to or not. It takes a lot of stress out of the game for everyone else, though."

Izzy wasn't sure why they were even playing if they knew who was going to win, but decided that if everyone else didn't let it spoil their experience, then neither would she.

"Do we have any kind of plan?" she asked as she finally drew a blue card and tossed it on the stack, only to watch Clary immediately change color to green, which she also didn't have. At least it'd take an entire round before it was her turn again, and there was plenty of time for someone to play red or yellow in between. "We're not just going to wait and see, right?"

Back home, they would have used the shadowhunter database to try and find out as much as they could about what they were going to face, choose their weapons, maybe work out a setup.

"We'll go back to the library and see what we can make of the information Magnus has and whatever we can glean from the binding marks that were in that outer circle," Allie told her. "You can use the yard to train if you want to."

Charlie played what looked like an entire handful of "Draw two" cards. "Ritual alone should produce enough of an energy source to draw whatever, even with the breadcrumb trail gone. Though I'd suggest we mark the path a bit to keep whatever from wreaking havoc on the way."

"Maybe we should just let it wreak some havoc," Jack suggested, playing a "draw four" card. "Then Allie could be so mad at it for breaking a piece of Calgary that she might send it back where it came from without any ritual backing at all."

Graham sighed and started to count out cards.

"He's a vampire, isn't he?" Jace suddenly said from the floor.

"The thing they're calling?" Allie asked. "Not likely."

"No. The guy in this book who lent the other guy his flying motorcycle. Siri—" He groaned. "Really? You're not—"

Clary was chuckling and Charlie was straining to keep a straight face, so Izzy suspected they knew something she didn't. Craning her neck a bit, she could see that Jace had switched books in the meantime, though.

"Sirius about that, yes," Clary said. "And no, Sirius Black is not a vampire. What on earth makes you think that?"

"He has a flying motorcycle!" Jace pointed out.

"It's not running on demon energy," Clary shot back. "It's just a flying motorcycle. The flying car isn't running on demon energy either, by the way."

"There's a flying car in there?" Jace asked, at the same time as Graham said: "You know vampires with flying motorcycles?"


	16. Chapter 16

_October 25 th, 2016_

"Who wants to go first?"

They exchanged a series of looks.

"Well?" Charlie prompted. "I promise I won't let anyone wrap my car around a streetlight."

"The streetlight was an accident," Jace grumbled.

It had been Graham's idea that the three of them should at least get an idea of how to drive.

_"Look," he'd said, in a tone that sounded far too reasonable to not get their guards up. "We might need some extra drivers after ritual to get us to the house on Mount Royal, and we never know in advance who's going to be too spent or still showing too much horn to drive safely after. If we want to make sure we have as much power to use as possible, that leaves Joe, Brian and Michael as designated drivers. Dan probably shouldn't even be anywhere near that much power."_

_"Who's Dan?" Alec had asked, catching on to a name they hadn't heard before._

_"He's Auntie Trisha's man," Allie had told him without looking away from the twin she was cleaning up after breakfast. "He's a telepath and almost went mad under the stress, and from all the pills he was given when people thought he already was mad. Charlie blocked some of his ability to make it easier for him to handle, and he's mostly fine now, though a bit shy."_

_"He really shouldn't be next to that much power," Charlie agreed. "It might blow my earworm right out of his head, and then he'll be no good as a driver until I can fix that. I agree. We should make sure any of you could get us to Mount Royal without dumping us in one of the rivers on the way."_

"Fine," Alec said. "I'll start." Someone had to, after all. As the nephilim's leader, it was only right that he would take it upon himself to embarrass himself first. Besides, it couldn't be that hard to drive a mundane car, right? Mundanes did it all the time.

"Very good, Alexander," Magnus told him with a proud smile. He had come downstairs with them, still looking a bit pale under his make-up but much steadier on his feet than he'd been the day before. "Then you can even borrow my car back home if you ever need it."

"You have a car?" Izzy asked, which got her a look from Magnus that said 'Don't be stupid. Of course I do."

Charlie held open the door and waited for Alec to get in so she could show him how to adjust the seat and the mirrors.

"It looked much easier in Luke and Simon's cars," Izzy commented as Charlie started to explain the gearshift to Alec as soon as she was satisfied that he'd be able to see what was going on beside and behind him once she was no longer standing in the way.

"That's because this car must be ancient," Clary said. "Who drives a stick shift these days anyway?"

"Ma-nu-al transmission," Charlie corrected. "I do. Jack does."

"So does Will Trent," Jack said. He'd driven the second car on their way out, since they'd been too many to fit in one. Agreeing that the yard behind the shop was too small to let any of them practice, and it wasn't a good idea to let them use the city's streets right away, they'd driven a small distance to a large but currently abandoned parking place Allie had found them after a quick scrying session. Or maybe she had emptied it out for them.

"Who's Will Trent?" Izzy asked.

Jace gave her a sly look. "Experience says he's probably from a book we haven't read." He turned to Clary for confirmation.

She raised her hands defensively. "I haven't read it either!"

A small plume of smoke rose up from Jack's nostrils as he snorted. "Now why don't two of you come with me and I'll show you how it works in the other car?"

_October 26 th, 2016_

Jace wasn't sure how he'd gotten into this particular situation.

Alec and Magnus had been dragged off by a group of Gale children who wouldn't take no for an answer, insisting on showing them their favorite playground. The adult Gales had been quite happy to press the two into service as babysitters, and waved off any concerns.

The kids knew the way. They were quite capable of playing without killing anyone. It wasn't close enough to Hallowe'en yet to make it very likely for them to meet with anything uncanny in broad daylight, and if they did, then Alec would be plenty of defense.

The worst thing they might encounter, the general consensus had been, would be some young, single mothers who thought that two good-looking young men who were willingly babysitting younger relatives would be just the right person to try to net for themselves.

As soon as it had been settled that they were going to stay until ritual, none of the children had thought twice about giving them the titles of aunts and uncles. So 'Uncle' Alec and 'Uncle' Magnus had gone off, Allie had pulled Clary into the kitchen to help with making more pie, and Izzy had grabbed the Harry Potter book that now sported three bookmarks in different colors to mark where she, Jace and Alec had gotten to respectively, while she waited for Charlie's sisters to arrive for their promised sparring session.

Reading that book was going to be slow work while they were sharing the same volume between the three of them.

Gwen had come in, grabbed several empty mugs from the kitchen and waved at Jace, who'd just been thinking about whether there was any sensible occupation for him in the apartment other than turning on the TV and trying to figure out the warlocks in space movies. "Store, Jonathan. Now."

"Jace," Jace muttered, but he followed the old woman. If Gale Luck meant that when you'd just been thinking about needing to find something to do, someone was going to shove work at you, he wasn't sure that he needed any Gale Luck to rub off on him.

On the other hand, how hard could helping out in the store be? It wasn't like there seemed to be a great many customers.

Once downstairs, Gwen pushed the mugs into his hands and some folded money into the pocket of his shirt. "Take these back to Kenny's next door," she said. "And don't dawdle."

Right.

"Kenny's" was the coffeehouse next door, right below the wing of the apartment that contained the guest room Alec and Magnus were staying in, the room Brian and Michael were using and the room Charlie and Jack were living in that, from the one time Jace had been in there, seemed much larger inside than it could possibly be.

Several of the tables in the coffeehouse were taken. As far as Jace could see, all the customers were mundanes.

The man behind the bar was tiny, ancient-looking, and seemed mundane enough, until Jace approached him, about to ask him if he was Kenny and where he was supposed to put the empty mugs.

He never got that far, as the man reached for them the moment he came in reach. "Ah, one of the Gales' new boys," he said. "Do you pay now, or do I put it on their tab?"

Jace teased the money out of his pocket and smoothed it out on the counter. He didn't know how much he needed. He didn't even know what he was paying for. "Is this okay?"

Kenny – he was going to go with the assumption that this was Kenny – glanced down at it and set down two freshly filled mugs in front of Jace before digging out some change. "This one's for Gwen," he said, pointing at the left-hand mug. "And that one's black, double-strong, just the way you like it. Don't hoard the mugs again."

"Wait." Jace pocketed the change. "How do you even know that's how I like my coffee?"

"Well," Kenny said, "do you?"

"Yeah." There was no arguing about it. "But…"

"Then there you go."

Jace drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Apparently as far as Kenny was concerned, there was nothing strange about him knowing such things, or that Gwen was waiting for him in the store in the first place…

The latter could be explained if Gwen hat texted him to let him know to prepare two coffees and mess with Jace, but why would she do that? And he was sure he hadn't talked to anyone about his coffee preferences either.

"On second thoughts," Kenny said, taking another mug from the shelves behind the counter. "You better take one for David, too."

Jace busied himself studying the photos on the wall while Kenny added sugar and cream to the third mug. He thought most of them showed the man at various stages of his life, in the company of people Jace had never seen before but who, judging by how the pictures were displayed, had to have some kind of relevance.

He counted out the price he was quoted, hoped that he wouldn't get into any trouble with Gwen for this, and returned to the store, trying not to burn his hands while juggling three mugs of freshly brewed coffee.

*

Jace thought he probably shouldn't have been surprised to see David in the store when he came back.

"What is Kenny?" he asked when he handed out the mugs.

David shrugged. He was fully dressed this time, including boots and even a long coat that fit the temperatures. "Some very specific sort of clairvoyant limited to coffee-drinking customers." It sounded more like a guess. "Who cares, as long as it works out well for everyone?"

Gwen moved towards the door at the back. "We need to talk to Alysha while David can still safely be in the same room with her and relax," she explained. "To figure out what we'll be doing about ritual with the five of you involved. I'm sure you can mind the store for a while, Jonathan."

He bit down on another reminder that his name was Jace, not Jonathan – though technically, it was, and it seemed like the Aunties believed in the power of "true" names. He'd rarely heard any of them call anyone of the younger generation by their nicknames. He was probably lucky they seemed to consider them all old enough to count as proper adults. They called the children and the youngest adults by first and middle names, and if he never had to hear the words "Jonathan Christopher" in combination again, it'd be too soon.

The store, though—

"But I've never done that before!" he protested. "I have no idea what to do."

David smirked at him. "It's easy," he said. "You stand behind the counter. When someone comes in you pay attention they don't steal anything and if they want to buy something, you charge the price on the tag. There's change in the register, and you make sure to enter anything you sell in the right one of the books. If anyone comes for their mail, you hand it out. I'd expect most of them coming on Friday night, but they might be early this week, since the barriers will be weakening by then, and they might not want to be out in that. Or leave their lairs undefended. Anything else, just call and someone will come downstairs."

"Right." He didn't think he could call loud enough to be heard in the apartment without being entirely ridiculous. Maybe Allie would respond to a mental call, though.

He moved behind the counter. If he was lucky, no one would come in while he was alone here.

The books David had referred to weren't hard to find. They were beautiful vintage leather-bound volumes defaced with black marker. The words printed on them read "Store", "Extras" and "Yoyos".

Well, he could probably figure out some of the yoyo tricks he'd seen the Gale women and Jack perform. That couldn't be so hard if he activated his Agility rune…

He picked a yoyo from the box on the counter and was about to let it drop when a passer-by stopped and did a 90-degree-turn to push the door open.

Through the window, she'd seemed a bit damp, as if she'd just come out of the rain.

Once inside the store, she was dry enough. A glamor, then.

She was a tall woman, with long blond hair that she wore tied back into a simple ponytail. She was dressed all in gray, layering up until it was impossible to guess at the shape of the body underneath the clothing.

She stopped short when she saw Jace.

He gave her his best reassuring smile. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"I didn't know they hired new staff," the woman returned. She seemed uncertain of whether to stay for whatever business had brought her, or bolt. "I was just coming for my mail, but I can come back another time…" Her words were so low he had to strain to hear them without activating his Hearing rune. Doing that was probably a bad idea. If she was this nervous just from having a stranger in the store, there was no telling what she would do if the stranger's apparent tattoo suddenly lit up.

"You'll have to help me a bit then," he said. "I fear we didn't have time for a proper introduction to the shop, and I don't know the procedure beyond 'hand out the mail'."

He got a wobbly smile in return. She came over, though still seeming to fight some internal battle, and put down a small object on the counter.

"Mailbox four," she said. "You just unlock it, give me my mail, and I'll pay for the next month. That's all there is to the procedure."

She withdrew her hand, revealing a half-sized envelope.

Looking inside, Jace saw folded money that seemed a little damp but otherwise fine. He had no idea how much she owed for the month, but if this wasn't enough it was all Gwen's fault for leaving him here without further instructions, and she could just cover the difference from her own wallet. He turned. No one had said he couldn't turn his back on the customers, and while he knew that a harmless appearance could be deceiving, she probably had no interest in drawing the Gales' anger by killing the person who was minding the store.

The next problem was one he had to solve, however: he didn't have a key to the mailboxes, and he had no idea where the keys might have been left.

Keys were overrated, he decided a moment later when, as he tapped the door on cubbyhole number four with a thoughtful finger, heard a small click just before it sprang open. Charmwork, he decided with a glance at the inside of that door. The mailbox was filled up almost entirely with letters and two amazon boxes. He put everything in a neat stack on the counter.

 She watched his every move, as if she was half expecting him to jump her any moment.

"Do you need anything else?" he asked.

A mute shake of her head, as she started to pack her mail away into the canvas bag she carried. "I've heard of people like you," she said, eventually, her voice low. "They kill people like me."

Jace raised his hands defensively, showing that he wasn't concealing any weapons. "I'm not here to kill anyone," he said. "Promise. I'm just minding the store because Auntie Gwen had to leave for a while. Besides, we only kill downworlders who break the Accords."

She cocked her head to one side. "Downworlders."

"You know. Like warlocks and vampires and werewolves?"

"I'm not that," she said.

"I know," he told her. He was pretty sure she was telling the truth. "I don't know what you are, though."

She laughed at that. "What kind of Fey hunter are you if you don't even know who's what?"

He was about to protest that he wasn't a "Fey hunter", but was stopped when she suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth.

"You made me laugh." She sounded disbelieving.

"Is that a bad thing?" He wasn't sure if he should get worried now. Surely that wasn't a good reason to call for help from upstairs, was it?

Her head moved slowly from side by side. "No."

Oh, good.

"Just rare. Look…" She seemed to fish for something else she could call him.

"Jace," he hurried to tell her. "My name's Jace."

"Jace," she repeated, still smiling. "If you're here to deal with what's coming through on Monday, pack up and leave. It's too big, and it'd be a shame if it tore you to pieces."

Now that wasn't exactly a statement that fitted her expression. Even more so since he knew that that had been exactly the idea.

"What's coming through on Monday?"

"I don't know." She sounded genuine. "But it's too big."

He tried to sound both convinced and convincing. "Allie will help us handle the big thing. So will David. They're upstairs discussing it now."

"Maybe I shouldn't have paid for next month then." Her smile was gone now. "Good luck, Jace."

With that, she turned and strode out, strands of hair that had escaped the tie billowing around her.

Well. That wasn't reassuring.

He closed the mailbox and lifted out the book to enter the transaction, going up the list until he had the last entry for mailbox number four so he could copy out the information. There was no name given. Actually, the only customer who seemed to rent by name, rather than species, was someone called Boris. He spelled out "Loireag" and entered the payment, which was precisely the amount she'd paid the month before and therefore probably accurate. He was going to tell everyone else about what she had said as soon as he got the chance.

*

By the time Gwen and David came downstairs again, Jace had sold two yoyos, a book and a solitary silver spoon. He thought that was pretty good work for his first shift in the shop. He'd had to guess at how to record the latter for the accounts, though, and could only hope that Allie would know which one was missing if she needed to know in any more detail.

"Did you figure it all out?" he asked, moving to vacate the place behind the counter for Gwen.

"Let's say we have a start," David said. He didn't seem dissatisfied, though. "I'll see you Monday." And with that, and a nod in Jace's direction, he left.

Through the shop window, David sported an impressive rack of shining white antlers over his head that would have gone right through the ceiling of the store if they hadn't been entirely metaphysical.

 _Descendants of the Horned God_ , he remembered. Did all Gale males look like that?

He realized he hadn't seen that many of them. Graham was a Gale by marriage; Jack was part dragon demon and probably didn't count. There'd been a couple of men around who'd had that distinctive Gale family look when they were researching in that library basement. Maybe next time he met one of them, he could put that Clearsight charm on his eyelids the same way it worked with Nightvision.

His musings were interrupted by another return: that of Alec and Magnus and their assortment of children.

Right then, he wouldn't have been surprised to see Alec grow wings through the window, just the way the mirror continued to show them all.

He didn't, though. The only thing that was unusual about Alec through the glass was that he looked washed out and faded against the brilliant colors of Magnus and their young companions.

The children raced through the store and out the back door, though not before making sure Gwen and Jace knew all about how Uncle Alec had tried out the swing and shown Lyla how to do a flip. She looked about ready to demonstrate, until Gwen's stern reminder of "Not in the shop" put an end to that.

Magnus was smiling after the children, his thoughts apparently not quite in the present.

"Have we ever gone anywhere with figuring out why the door always has us out of focus?" Jace asked.

Alec shook his head. They'd been somewhat distracted by Magnus' rescue and the subsequent revelations, and had since been thinking more about what they were going to face on Monday than the shop window's habits.

"We have," Gwen said, just as Magnus asked: "What are you talking about?"

The warlock was perched on the edge of the counter, his arms crossed loosely in front of his chest to keep himself from accidentally hitting his hands on something.

"I'll show you," Jace offered. He was already on his way to the door.

A feeling of dread settled over him as he stepped outside and closed the glass behind him. What if Gwen once again saw _fishing lines_ in him?

It wasn't a very rational concern. There hadn't been any more of those fits and it probably would have shown up when Charlie had shown them how to see power – though admittedly, they'd been busy with something else at that time.

In any case, knowing would be better than wondering, however vaguely, and it was a relief to be waved back inside with no one commenting that their attempt at shielding him must have failed.

Magnus' eyes were narrowed as he looked back and forth between Alec and Jace.

"Isabelle shows up the same," Gwen said. "It's visible on Clarissa, though she's a bit more in focus."

"What's your conclusion so far?" Alec wanted to know. If he had any suspicions of his own, he kept them to himself.

"We think something's weakening your hold on this world," Gwen told them. "Allie says Joe looked like that – but worse – when he was being called back under the Hill before she locked him to the family."

Jace made a disgusted face. "The only one who might be calling _us_ 'under the Hill', as you say, is the Seelie Queen, and she has no reason to. She's banned us from her realm, remember?"

In fact, Charlie had, at Clary's insistence, even tried to take them there through the Wood in order to get to Simon. It hadn't worked any better than getting there from New York directly.

Gwen inclined her head to acknowledge his words. "I don't think the destination matters. Also, you're solid enough that unless you suddenly start to deteriorate, you can probably stably stay in this world for a few decades.

"I would prefer it if Alexander was not prematurely removed from this world one way or another," Magnus threw in. "Not even in a few decades. You said that Clary is more solid?"

"And we will be working on finding out what is going on with that, and on a way to reverse it – after we deal with Monday," Gwen assured him.

"If it's not connected to what's going on here," Alec said, slowly, as if he was still thinking about his words even as they came out of his mouth, "and if we have to assume that Clary got less of what caused it than the three of us, then it'd have to be something we all were in contact with, but Clary less so than any of us."

Jace blinked. "Something in the Institute."

"Or in Idris," Magnus added.

"But then…"

Alec met his eyes, and he could see his own thoughts reflected there.

Then it would likely affect every single nephilim at the institute – and who knew how many others.

And if someone was trying to remove the nephilim from this world and had gotten access to one or several of their locations to plant something like a time bomb, there might not even be a need to create a powerful common enemy to maintain cohesion among them.

That would mean there already was one – one that so far everyone seemed oblivious about.

*

_October 27 th, 2016_

"Like this."

They were assembled in the big library once again, trying to narrow down what they were going to face by going the reverse route – instead of looking up the signs of binding and protection for a specific creature or entity, they were trying to match the signs they had to their purpose.

People were coming and leaving in the eternal dance that seemed to be typical for the Gale family. When someone arrived, everyone shifted to accommodate them. When someone left, everyone shifted to close the gap.

Izzy wondered if, even if they were to stay for a hundred years, they would ever quite get the hang of that.

Presently, Katie had wandered over to where some school-aged children – she hadn't quite managed to get all their names down so far – were sitting and doing homework. One of them had been about to put a charm on her school book before Katie's interruption.

"You were going to put a hole right through your book."

"Maybe I wanted to put a hole through my book!"

Katie laughed, and Izzy moved to join them and see what they were doing.

The book seemed to be an heirloom from an older sibling. In any case, it was thoroughly written and drawn in – at least on the left one of the pages it was currently opened to. The right one looked like a used, but mostly well preserved book.

Katie repeated the charm she'd just shown her younger relative on the second page, then wiped a tissue over it while holding the paper flat with her free hand.

Pencil and pen strokes came off like dirt being wiped from a moistened pane of glass.

The girl pouted. "I was going to figure it out on my own," she complained.

"Then use a book your parents won't have to replace if you tear it to pieces," Katie advised.

She smiled at Izzy. "Kids. You probably know all about those experiments."

Actually, Izzy didn't, and she said so. "We're very strict about using only approved runes. You wouldn't find one of our children playing around and making up their own runes once they get their own steles." She chuckled. "Though there was the time my brother almost burned down the Mumbai Institute because he drew a fire rune on his desk."

"Alec?" Katie asked, surprised.

"No. Max. He's our younger brother." She felt her face darken as she thought of Max, whose recovery from the injury he'd suffered at the hands of Valentine's son would be a long one. "He claimed he mistook it for the nourishment rune."

Katie drew the outlines of that rune in the air with one finger. Considering that the Gales hadn't, as far as Izzy knew, had that one in their repertoire before they had shown up – and what for, in light of their family obsession with pie and pancakes – information certainly did spread quickly here.

"But they look _nothing_ alike."

"I know." The amusement was back. Better to think of Max' antics than his current efforts to regain skills lost when the Silent Brothers had had to reboot his brain. "So you just let them experiment with charms? Isn't that dangerous?"

Katie shrugged. "It can be, but they learn very quickly what not to do. And by the time they are able to draw enough power to do some real damage, they're good enough to avoid that. We don't wake up with the ability to influence the world around us one day, you know. It's a gradual process. By the time we're fifteen, it's complete and we become adults within the family. Now…" She gave Izzy a long look. "I wouldn't recommend you start just experimenting if you aren't sure you know what you're doing. You can draw plenty enough power to wreak havoc, and so far you have little knowledge of what not to do."

She hated to admit to it, but Katie was right. "I've learned some," she said.

"Learn more," Katie advised.

"I have news."

Everyone turned. Elessar had come back with Melissa, in spite of the disapproving looks of Auntie Bea – or specifically in order to prove they didn't matter to him. The two of them had settled on a couch and started comparing sigils. His focus on the book had been broken at intervals by texts coming in on his fey phone, which he now lifted up by way of explanation.

"I've just been told I might want to take everyone back home for an extended weekend and avoid unpleasantries," he announced. "It appears that a General on one of the farther-removed planes is gathering up his warriors and preparing to push through into this realm. The when isn't hard to guess, and no one's really doubting the where either. Not when there's a big fat spotlight shining at Calgary."

"If we have a beacon," Bea said, "We should find out where it's anchored and just turn it off. Problem solved."

Elessar laughed. "I don't think even the Bard could get into and out of that realm alive. No offense."

"None taken," Charlie said. "And I appreciate the warning."

"How'd they get their spotlight set up there in the first place, then?" one of the younger Gale adults threw in.

Auntie Bea rolled her eyes as if it was obvious. "By sacrificing the person they charged with putting it there."

The Court rose from his seat with inhuman grace and strode over to the bookshelves. "At least I can show you what's coming."

There were nods of appreciation around the room. Melissa watched Elessar closely as he picked a thick tome and carried it to the largest table.

"Are you going to heed their advice and leave?" she asked, joining him there.

He snorted. "And miss out on all the fun? Not likely."

Auntie Bea favored him with a long, hard look. "If you interfere…"

Elessar raised his hands. "Same sides, remember?"

The old woman's eyes narrowed as she studied him. "Do you and your companions drive, Elessar?"

That sounded like it could have been a backwards way of agreeing to actually include the Courts and their guards in any plans that were made. Elessar seemed to understand it like that, as he nodded regally. Auntie Trisha understood it the same way, but was far less gracious about it.

"But the family doesn't deal with the fey!" She reminded everyone, her tone icy.

Bea turned her stare at her fellow Auntie. "The family is no longer separate from the fey," she said, calmly stating facts. "Deal with it, Patricia Anna Gale."

Izzy could feel the collective wince that went through the assorted Gales at the use of the full name.

Instead of engaging in a staring contest, Bea returned her focus to the book, where Elessar had in the meantime opened a page depicting a vaguely humanoid demon riding a flying creature that combined a mane of hair along its long neck with black wings reminiscent of a bat and a tail that should have belonged to a scorpion.

"He commands a host of other charming creatures, and I hear he intends to bring most of them," Elessar said, leafing through an impressive number of pages and raising them a bit, held between two fingers, to suggest how much of the book covered what they'd be up against. He turned back to the beginning of the chapter, and pointed at the text. "So it seems you were right in that he was invited to keep those good people," he described a vague circle in the air with his other hand, indicating the nephilim, "busy protecting their mundanes, because this good fellow is really great at siphoning off their life force, draining them and killing them to feed himself and his friends. His army multiplies, mundanes die."

"Last time he got out was in 1346," Bea read off the page.

Magnus nodded. "Killed a third of the population and took seven years to contain because by the time everyone had figured out what was going on, he'd had enough power that even shadowhunters and warlocks working together almost weren't enough. And now there are a lot more people in close quarters – he'll be able to grow his power faster, and spread out farther, if he isn't caught and sent back home immediately."

Charlie frowned. "Europe 1346? That was the Black Death." She looked around at the surprised glances she got. "What? I almost have a history degree, you know."

"Charlie almost has a lot of degrees," Allie noted for the nephilims' sake.

"That's what the mundanes made of it," Magnus confirmed. "Let's try and not give them reason to figure out science is entirely wrong about that one."

"We need to ward the path from the entrance point to Nose Hill Park," Allie said, studying the page over the Auntie's shoulder. "He can't get his hands on any non-combatants on the way. It'll be that much harder to get rid of him once he has established a foothold anywhere. And if he can spread his influence from person to person without being there himself…"

"Like a zombie network," Jack pointed out.

Several dark looks hit him.

"Zombies don't actually exist," Jace corrected. "The closest you can get would be Forsaken, or possessed corpses…"

Jack didn't seem perturbed by the correction. "It's a computer term," he said. "Ask Cameron about it."

No one seemed inclined to do that right away.

"Wards," Bea repeated. "Alysha will need to make sure no one actually ventures out along that route during that night. We'll need extra protections on our drivers, too. It'd probably be best to lock them inside our house while we're in Ritual. Jonathan, do something about that noise."

*

While Allie drew up Google Earth on a laptop and started mapping out the best route to ward and protect, while muttering about how much energy it would take to keep people off the streets even in a limited part of Calgary on the evening of Hallowe'en, of all times, Jace moved over where Richard and his friends were once again tormenting the piano.

"You were going to show us how to play!" The boy said in an accusatory tone as soon as he arrived.

Jace sighed. "Only if you promise to be nice to the instrument in future," he said.

Richard looked at him with an expression too calculating for his age. "Have you never just…" he ran a hand wildly over the keys.

"No." Jace said. "And if my father had seen me do that, I would have regretted it, too."

"Would he have grounded you?" The boy asked.

Jace frowned. "Grounded?"

"Sent you to your room and told you to stay there until he said you could come out, or not let you go outside except for school?" Richard didn't seem too certain whether Jace really didn't know what 'grounded' meant, or whether he was just playing stupid.

"No. He wouldn't have 'grounded' me. He would have just broken my fingers one by one, then healed them and made me practice more."

"Only break bones as a last resort!" Auntie Carmen called over.

How on earth did the aunties manage to follow several conversations at once and hear what everyone said even through the din of the rest of the room?

"Only as a last resort, got it!" Jace called back. He didn't plan on breaking anyone's fingers at all, but maybe it was just as well if the children didn't know that.


	17. Chapter 17

_October 28 th, 2016_

"No, you're definitely not learning that today," Izzy told the twins.

Their eyes shone as they watched Alec and Jace give them a demonstration of their fighting skills, generously interspersed with acrobatics. Actually, they were only waiting for the two to clear the yard so they could have one of those fighting lessons Izzy had promised.

"Not even with charm enhancement."

"Not?" Carrie asked. She had tied a green cloth around her head to keep her hair out of her face. Her sister had used a red one. They said they'd done it on purpose to make it easier for them to tell them apart.

Izzy shook her head. "As I've said before: The charms help when you have an idea of what you're doing, but they can't replace actually learning the moves. And they're no good if you don't have the muscle memory built up to let your bodies know what to do. Also, we're not going to start showing you that kind of thing on this kind of ground." She gestured to the hard paving of the yard. "We'll stick with things where your feet are mostly pointing down, not up."

Ashley smirked. "I could think of a few things to do with that brother of yours that wouldn't include any feet pointing down." She considered for a second. "Either of your brothers, actually."

"Both taken," Izzy noted drily.

Ashley shrugged. "Charlie sleeps with Allie and Graham when the mood strikes."

What the hell? "I did _not_ need to know that," Izzy returned. "Jack—"

"No, Jack doesn’t join in," Ashley said. "He's more of a 'not interested in anyone else' person outside of ritual. Charlie isn't."

"You mean he knows about this?" That came out more shocked than Izzy had intended it to, but both of them nodded calmly.

"Of course. What did you think?"

Izzy took a moment to collect her thoughts. "I think there's a lot about this family I don't understand yet. And my brothers are like Jack, not like Charlie."

"Too bad," Carrie said.

"Not sure they're even in our age bracket," Ashley added, her tone far more reasonable than the words sounded.

Mistaking Izzy's mental attempt at math for confusion, she continued: "Seven years older, seven years younger. Beyond that, the power difference is too great. Gale women are drawn to power and Gale men are entirely too charming. Vice versa, it's very easy for a Gale woman to change a man's mind. Plenty of space for abuse if you don't impose strict rules."

Izzy had a nagging feeling that "changing a man's mind" was meant more literally than she was used to.

"Except in ritual. Ritual is different. That's because it's a rule onto itself."

Narrowing her eyes, Izzy processed that. They had talked about ritual as a way to gather power, and something the family apparently did at regular intervals. They hadn't actually talked about what was going to happen in it. The Gales hadn't seemed concerned about it, the nephilim had been putting off asking about the details. Because apparently whatever it was was safe enough for every family member aged fifteen and older to participate.

"What exactly are we talking about?" she asked suspiciously.

"Sex," both twins said as one, not the least shy about naming things outright.

"Ritual is about sex?"

"Well, d'oh," Carrie told her. "That's the point. Our great-great-great-and-so-on-grandfather was a fertility god, remember?"

The expression on Izzy's face made her laugh.

"We use contraception charms, silly," she said. "That is, unless you want to have a baby, but then it's considered good manners to ask the man you picked for it first."

"I do not—" Izzy made a mental note to make very sure she had a contraception charm on her. Maybe several. For all that she was possibly the most experienced one of their group, save Magnus, she wasn't sure what she was thinking of the concept of 'ritual'. She also really didn't want to be the one who would tell Alec and Jace. In particular not Alec. "I'm not sure I want to have sex in front of my brother," she admitted, keeping her voice low.

The twins gave her a grin. "I wouldn't worry about that," they told her. "He'll be way too busy to take note of what you're doing. Besides, we'll make sure there's plenty of family between you and him. Even if he doesn't go into a rut like our men, it's better to not take any chances."

She blinked at the word 'rut'. Then she remembered David. David the stag. David the man. Suddenly, the term seemed dangerously appropriate. "They turn into deer?"

"Only David," Ashley said. She managed to keep her eyes on the two men, now grappling on the ground. "Everyone else racks out but doesn't change all the way. Can't wait to see if those two grow horn."

"Graham doesn't grow horn," her sister threw in.

Ashley thought about that only for a second. "Graham doesn't need horn. They're still talking about that time he took down Roland. I wish we'd been here to see _that_."

"I don't think those two need horn either." It was hard to tell if Carrie's appreciating look was directed at the two young men's fighting prowess or the way their muscles were moving under their skin as they rose gracefully, barely out of breath.

They moved, clearing the space for the three women.

"If you're going upstairs," Izzy told her brother, "can you send Clary down? I just realized I could use a partner to demonstrate, and I fear either of you are going to be a bit too … distracting." She gave him a wink, to which he responded with a knowing smile and a nod.

"You know," Carrie said, moving into what was actually an acceptable basic stance for most hand-to-hand combat. "Clary isn't exactly non-distracting either."

Izzy groaned.

*

_October 29 th, 2016_

"How does he do it?" Alec asked, amazement and disbelief in his voice.

Graham had just sunk the fifth arrow into the bull's eye, at a distance that would have challenged him, with a bow he was holding in his hands for the first time, without a single trial shot.

"That shouldn't even be possible."

He was talking to Magnus, who stood outside the fence that marked the private shooting range Graham had set up in a part of the park, and Allie had charmed to keep mundanes away from. His forearms rested on the upper beam and he looked perfectly at ease with a slight breeze ruffling his hair. Other than his hands, he seemed fully recovered from his ordeal in the Seelie Realm. His hands, of course, were a matter of their own. The curse still lingering inside him was weakening, but still too strong to risk setting it off.

Graham made another perfect shot, and Alec shook his head. "It's like he can't miss."

Charlie chuckled behind him. "Alec, he _can't_ miss," she said. "Hasn't anyone told you about that?"

Turning, Alec gave her a confused look. "Told me about what?"

The Bard took a deep breath. "Graham literally can't miss. It's part of his seventh son of a seventh son mojo. You could blindfold him, spin him in circles and make him shoot over his shoulder, and he wouldn't miss. He's metaphysically incapable of missing."

"Huh." That was handy – for Graham. It also made Alec feel a lot less bad about being outperformed by … well, a non-nephilim. He didn't think 'mundane' was the right word for Graham.

Graham went to get the arrows out of the target and returned to the fence. "Nice bow," he commented.

"And how would you know?" Alec asked him with a smirk. "Would you even be able to tell the difference?"

The older man had the decency to look a little abashed. "Well, it feels good in my hands anyway."

"Why do you even practice when you can't miss either way?" Alec wanted to know. He went into position and took aim.

"I still need to keep my speed up and my focus on where I want the bullet to go. Or the arrow, as the case may be." Graham picked up his rifle and gave it a quick go-over, then did the same for the smaller handgun he had brought. "Did you want to try this?"

Alec shot six arrows in quick succession, picking them from his quiver, putting them to the string and letting them fly so fast he didn't even seem to aim.

They hit close to each other, clustered within the black. Not as close as Graham's had been, but all of them perfectly deadly.

"Sure." He hadn't shot a firearm before. Most nephilim never did, even if they specialized in ranged weapons. There just wasn't much of a use for them in their line of work. There were no bullets made of adamas, and guns couldn't be enhanced with runes.

Except, of course, both of Graham's weapons were covered in charms. He'd noticed them before, but put off asking about it. It hadn't been vital at the moment. They'd been busy that time he'd seen Graham in action with his rifle.

"But runes ruin a gun," Alec said as they moved to the better-protected part of Graham's shooting gallery.

"Really?" Graham held the weapon out to Alec. "I've never noticed anything of the kind. My former employer used to put his hexes on my weapons, and Allie and David charmed all over them again after the Aunties cleaned them up."

There were no marks for Accuracy – which Alec had just heard would have been very much redundant in Graham's case –, but he could see Waterproofing, Silence, and a variety of safety precautions, as well as one he had no idea what to make of at all. He laid a finger against it, tracing the lines.

"That's a Hands-Off for the boys," Graham said.

"Oh." That seemed overly careful, since the weapons were locked away outside of the apartment, but it probably didn't hurt.

Graham walked Alec through the steps of shooting the unfamiliar weapon before he left him to try it out.

It wasn't that different from archery, Alec thought. The movements were simpler, the grip on the weapon strange, and the recoil something he didn't find particularly pleasant. There was no way a gun like this would ever replace his bow and arrows, but he could see himself carry one for the added reach it offered – in a world in which runes didn't render them non-functional.

By the time he handed the gun back to Graham, the older man had fully assembled his rifle, showing Alec the complete thing equipped with a scope. This was a sniper's weapon, meant for extremely accurate shots at very long distances.

Now that was something Alec could see plenty of use for. It, too, was charmed over all along the barrel.

"Why can Allie put a charm on a gun and keep it working, and we can't?" Alec asked when they returned to where Charlie and Magnus were standing and watching them. Magnus was beaming with pride at the speed at which his boyfriend had gotten sufficiently acquainted with the new weapon to actually score hits.

"Have you tried?" Charlie asked.

Alec thought that if he had to never hear that question again, it would be too soon.

But she had a point.

"I don't want to risk ruining one of Graham's guns," he said. "We've always been taught that runes make it impossible to fire a gun, and so very, very few of us use them. Some do when they have to take down a werewolf, though. They certainly don't use runes on them."

Graham shrugged. "Go ahead. I don't think you can do anything the aunties can't fix." He put the small gun into Alec's hands again, grip first, and wiped one of the charms off to make space.

Drawing an Accuracy charm in its place with a moistened finger, Alec wondered if there was any way to see that a gun had stopped working without trying it. It certainly didn't look any different from before, except that his charm had a shine that deviated slightly from that of those already there. That brought up the question of whether, with some practice, he'd be able to tell who had drawn a charm just from looking at it.

He went back to the target and gave the weapon a try.

It worked. Even more than that, with his own charm on it, it felt just a little more natural to use it, a bit more familiar and comfortable. He also felt the difference in his aim.

Still, the information that runes ruined a firearm couldn't be all wrong. He had read plenty of studies on attempts of making it work. He'd seen it demonstrated once, while he'd been in training. That had been around the time he had decided to focus on long-ranged weapons.

So maybe the difference between a rune and a charm was greater than they had come to accept in the last week after all.

It seemed that the others had had a similar idea.

"Wipe it off again and try doing your thing with the thing," Graham suggested.

"Wow," Charlie said, rolling her eyes at him. "Eloquent much? Don't you have a journalism degree? Shouldn't you be able to come up with something better than 'thing'?"

Graham grinned at her. "Only if you pay me for it."

Alec suppressed a sigh as he pulled out his stele. It looked as unpleasant as it had the first time he'd seen it through his new power vision skill. He didn't even really want to touch it. He would have given a lot right then to have one at hand that hadn't been tampered with.

With its tip against the barrel, he re-traced the accuracy charm, burning the rune into the metal.

He thought he could see the flow of power between gun and stele, though it looked odd, like an optical illusion that made you think you saw water flowing uphill. It was as if the stele was _taking_ energy out of the gun, rather than adding to it.

Once applied, the rune looked just like the charms did, except that it was black and remained visible to the unaided eye.

Alec returned to the target, rested his wrist on his other arm to aim, and pulled the trigger.

There was a click.

"It's not the runes," Charlie said matter-of-factly. "It's the delivery mechanism."

 _It's not the runes. It's the delivery mechanism_.

The words reverberated in his head.

The stele had seemed to withdraw energy from the gun.

Feeling chilled to the bone, Alec looked around until he spotted a solitary bush, just large enough for the thing he had in mind. "Is it a problem if that dies?" he asked Charlie and Graham, pointing.

"Probably not," came the answer. "What are you thinking of?"

"Do you have your power vision on?" Alec strode over and put his stele against the trunk of the plant.

He waited for Charlie's nod before he began to draw.

You couldn't mark living things that weren't nephilim with runes without harming them. On mundanes, a lesser rune would hurt them, where a stronger one would drive them insane and turn them into zombie-like, disfigured, deteriorating creatures only good to do their master's bidding and otherwise viciously attack anything in their way.

Anything else tended to not survive the application of a rune to begin with.

The rune gave power.

The stele took it.

 _It's not the runes. It's the delivery mechanism_.

"I see it," Charlie said.

He didn't ask her what she meant by "it".

"So now we know what happened to our steles," Alec said, but even as he spoke, the words sounded wrong. It didn't add up.

"Alec, I think that's a feature, not bug," Charlie told him.

He gave her an uncomprehending look.

Graham clarified: "She means it's supposed to do that."

*

Alec's mind was still spinning.

He had filled the others in as soon as he'd been able to, and expected disbelief, denial, maybe anger at the outrageous thing he was suggesting.

He hadn't expected composed faces and thoughtfully nodding heads.

Jace looked as if someone had just kicked him in a really painful location, while Izzy closed her eyes for a moment and placed her stele on the table.

"You're not surprised," Alec observed with a look at his sister.

She sighed. "It had crossed my mind. We're all faded but Clary less so than the rest of us? Sure, it could have been something inside the Institute, but that felt a bit random." She pushed her stele with one finger. "Let the Aunties see what they can make of this. I don't think we can kidnap an Iron Sister and demand answers."

*

_October 30 th, 2016_

The distance between the place where they had found Alec and expected the demon general to emerge, and the area in the park where they were going to hold ritual was about twelve kilometers when moving strictly along the streets, rather than straight through buildings.

Every single Gale in town over the age of fifteen who was not otherwise irreplaceably busy had joined the task at hand. The four nephilim had done so as well.

Armed with packs of chalk, they were spread out along the route, working in teams of two.

The Aunties had given each of them a drawing of the strongest warding charms they had been able to devise, making as sure as they could that the horde they were expecting would not stray from the designated path even without the breadcrumbs to follow, and, more importantly, would not have a chance to take a bite out of or hook a claw into any mortal as they were moving along.

It meant double-warding every single entrance they passed on the way, every street or alley branching off the route, every driveway and every nook where something might decide to linger.

They were working under the cover of the nephilim's glamor that protected them from being seen by mundanes. That helped them keep up their speed, since it kept people from wondering what a group of adults was doing covering the ground in strange chalk marks.

Charlie and Jack weren't part of the ward crew. Instead, they were setting up small beacons – sigils that were to serve as signposts, clearly marking the way. It was a double precaution, but the only misgiving anyone had about that was that they couldn't think of a third one.

At least keeping people from wandering into their path would be marginally easier than they had feared. Thanks to a number of strangely coinciding and very conveniently located burst water pipes, road construction was underway in strategic locations that served to close nearly the entire route for traffic.

That had been Allie's doing, in a way. More specifically: it had happened when Allie had gotten upset over the difficulty of keeping people away without taking too much focus off of ritual.

"I don't think anyone thinks much about things like that anymore," Charlie had waved off any concerns that this occurrence might draw undue attention. "Not since the time the telephone poles leafed out when Allie was pregnant with Edward and Evan."

Cars being mostly blocked from getting in the way by mundane means helped take some of the stress off. Pedestrians could be deterred by the same wards that kept their target inside the boundaries they set. Being spaces fully enclosed in metal, cars awarded some protection against charms and were that much harder to breach.

*

_October 30 th, 2016, after sunset_

Alec allowed himself to breathe a little sigh of relief as he pulled the car into the parking place and killed the engine.  They'd continued the driving lessons all through the week as they had found time, but he'd still been somewhat nervous when Allie had tossed the car keys at him and told him the GPS knew how to find the park.

They'd just finished dinner when Allie's eyes had briefly taken on that faraway look they were all used to seeing on her face now and then.

"David wants to talk to you," she'd said to Alec when focus had returned.

"About what?" He'd asked.

"He didn't say."

Alec locked the car, then turned around and tried the door to make sure that he had actually locked the car and not pushed the wrong button, leaving it open for anyone to take. He wasn't sure how easy that would be for a mundane, or if any of the charms on the car prevented it, but he didn't fancy coming back to the apartment on foot and having to confess to Allie that he had lost her vehicle.

Wiping suddenly sweaty hands on his jeans, Alec started down the path into the park with brisk steps.

David was waiting for him just out of sight of the parking place. Tonight, he didn't look quite human.

He was still walking on two legs, wearing jeans – though once again no shoes – and nothing else. He didn't seem to feel the cold air of late fall, though. The antlers branching out from his head shone in an eerie glow that gave off no real light. His eyes were black rim to rim again, like a demon's, and that still took Alec a moment to shake off every time he saw it happen.

The movement in which David turned his head into the wind, his nostrils flaring as he took in a scent, was more stag than man.

"You wanted to see me?" Alec asked, not sure what else to say to open the conversation.

"Walk with me," David said. His voice sounded strange in the stillness of the park. It was the voice Alec knew from him, and yet it wasn't. There was something swinging along in it that seemed more than the David he had met before. Something old - and wild.

They walked in silence for a while, deeper into the park.

For a moment, unreasonably, Alec wondered if David was going to suddenly jump him, skewer him with those horns and kill him, drink his blood or whatever else demons might come up with to do to shadowhunters.

David isn't a demon, he reminded himself.

A small part of him refused to believe it.

"Have you and your friends decided what to do about ritual?" David asked into the silence.

"We'll do what will do the most good," Alec said.

They'd had a long talk about it between the five of them when Allie and Charlie had outlined the workings of the ritual to them: The way in which the family generated its power.

"We've had rituals with a fourth circle for protection before, in which people were not active participants. You can opt out and be the fourth circle," they'd said.

After long consideration, weighing of the pros and cons and the sheer strangeness of the concept, they had reached a unanimous decision: They would go for what would add the greatest effect, no matter how uncomfortable the thought felt right then.

"And what is that?" David sounded amused, but also just a bit impatient.

Alec swallowed. "We'll be in ritual."

The antlers dipped as David inclined his head. "There are two things you need to understand, Alec."

At least he wasn't calling him Alexander. It was easy to tell when Gales thought they were above you in rank: they used your full name. David may have been about to give him _The Talk_ , ritual edition, but at least he was doing so between equals.

That was, if it was even possible to speak of equals when one of you was presently partially transformed into a stag.

"First: we don't have a lot of experience with non-Gales in ritual. Graham's the first outsider we have in the circles. It's possible that what applies to us doesn't apply to you."

"Does it apply to Graham?" Alec wanted to know.

"Yes."

Then it was better to assume it would be the same for them. "Noted."

"You may experience strange things while in ritual, Alec. Things you would never feel outside of it. The power we channel is strong, and rooted very deeply in fertility."

They'd talked about that. When they had reported their decision to the assembled heads of the family – that was, to Allie and the four aunties –, they had explained at some length about where they were going to be placed.

Jace and Clary would be part of second circle, the group of established, permanent couples and single adults who had children without being in a relationship.

Izzy was easy to place in third circle, among the young, unattached and childless.

Alec and Magnus presented a bit of a problem.

_"Based on your relationship, you should be second circle," Allie had said. "But that won't work."_

_"Because we're both guys?" Alec had asked, which had gotten him an utterly confused look from the assembled Gales._

_"What on earth makes you think that?" Auntie Bea had asked after a moment. "The only circle that has a gender ratio is first. But second has a fertility requirement."_

_"That I do not meet," Magnus observed. He had a glass of whiskey cradled carefully between his hands. Mixing alcohol with the mundane pills he was taking at the Aunties' and Peggi's continued insistence may not have been the wisest thing, but the vintage Graham had opened had been just a bit too tempting to resist._

_Bea nodded in his direction. "That. Now, by sheer power, you could go in first circle, but first circle does have a gender ratio – which means one male, and one male only, and that male is David. Which leaves third for you."_

_"Alec could still go in second if he prefers," Auntie Carmen added._

_Alec shook his head vehemently._

_"Thought so," the old woman said. "So you're pulling a Jack and staying in third by choice."_

_"Charlie's in the same boat as Magnus," Allie informed them. "First or third, and Jack could join her in first by power, but not by gender, so third it is – and Cameron is probably going to want to kill one or all of us after ritual."_

_Seeing their confused looks, she'd elaborated: "Cameron anchors third, which means he collects the power third circle draws and passes it on to me. With that much power in third circle, he'll be completely and utterly spent afterwards."_

"The stag isn't a metaphor, you know," David explained. "When we say we go into a rut in ritual, we mean it. The power we draw on is overwhelming, and it sends us right at the closest partner suitable for producing offspring. So if you suddenly feel the urge to mate with one of the girls, remember: It doesn't say anything about your love for Magnus, and it doesn't mean you're secretly desiring women more than men. All it means is that you're channeling a lot of power that wants us all to produce as many babies as possible." He chuckled. "We trick it a bit, though."

Alec raised his eyebrows in a question. He wasn't sure if David could even see it. The only light they had came from the stars above them.

It appeared that he did.

"We use contraception charms. We don't need that many babies," he elaborated. "And by the way, by 'we', I mean everyone. Except for Graham. Graham has to use condoms because apparently a contraception charm or two isn't enough of a barrier for the seventh son of a seventh son." His snort was mostly stag.

Unsure if he needed to know that much about Graham's sexual prowess and fertility, Alec tried to get back on topic.

"I think I got it. What was the second thing?"

"The second thing," David said, all amusement gone from his voice now, "is that if you suddenly get the urge to challenge me, attack me, kill me, you better find a way to not act on it."

 Alec stared at him. "What?"

"Stags." David indicated his rack of antlers. "They fight for dominance. We fight for dominance. I will be the dominant male in the circles. If you attack me, there are two possible outcomes. One: I kill you. You don't want that, for obvious reasons. And I'm not even saying that I could kill you. I really don't want to find out. Two: You kill me. And _you_ really don't want to do that, because if you kill me, you take my place as the anchor. That means you're tied to this park until the moment of your death."

"But you leave the park."

"For a few hours at a time," David said. "I can't be away for long. Half a day at most. In a crowd, it's a struggle to keep a human seeming at all. Like Allie, I can't physically leave the city boundaries. This is the price we pay for our power. So do yourself a favor – and don't kill me."


	18. Chapter 18

_October 31 st, 2016, late evening_

"Help me take these off." Magnus held his hands out to Alec.

They were getting ready to leave for the park, and Magnus had put off this particular request until the last possible moment, hoping to avoid lengthy discussions that way.

Alec looked uncertain. "It's only been a week. Your hands can't be healed."

"They're not," Magnus admitted. "But they're held together with enough magic that I'm sure I can get off two or three spells at least before anything tears. My magic may make a difference tonight. We should use what we have."

He met Alec's doubtful expression with a confident smile.

"Catarina can fix any damage I do today in a little while. It won't make a difference in the long run." He lifted his hands a little to underline his request.

Alec hesitated another second as he let the statement run through his mind again. Then he reached out to wipe away the charms that stiffened the bandages covering Magnus' injuries to let them effectively serve as splints. That made it easier to tease the end of the material free and unwind it.

Magnus knew exactly how far the healing in his hands had progressed. With the edges of the cuts held together precisely by magical glue, the outer layers of his skin had all but healed, the angry red of fresh scars drawing a cross-cross pattern on the inside of his fingers, his palms and wrists. He'd seen them when Gwen had changed his bandages.

The deeper layers were a different matter, but tendons, nerves and muscles were joined far more tightly with magical sutures than any mundane means could have achieved.

He flexed his fingers the moment the wrappings were off, carefully closing and opening his hands with a small trickle of magic running through them, and finding with great relief that they obeyed him, though his movements were neither as fast nor as accurate as he was used to. Even with strengthening magic to prevent the onset of atrophy in muscles forced into inaction, it took him a few attempts before he managed a good spell.

He also realized that it would probably be a good idea to take a double dose of the painkillers in advance, to keep the discomfort from growing too distracting.

Alec reached for his hands, running a moistened cloth over them to clean any residue of salve and dried sweat from his skin. The coolness felt nice, and Alec's touch was far more gentle than Gwen's had been even when she'd made an effort.

Once done, the young nephilim fished a package of fresh bandages out of the drawer, double-checked that no one had accidentally charmed on them – though how anyone should have done that was beyond him – and deftly re-wrapped Magnus' hands and wrists, while leaving his fingers free.

Magnus didn't protest. It was a good idea. The extra support could very well turn out to be helpful.

He was just done when a rap on the door announced Charlie's arrival. The Bard's way of knocking was quite distinctive.

She didn't look surprised to see him with his hands only half covered. Neither did she scold him for it.

Instead, she held up a small item. "Auntie Bea said you might want these."

Upon inspection, 'these' turned out to be a pair of fingerless gloves of stout black leather, providing far more protection than the bandages alone could.

"Tell Auntie Bea 'thank you'," Magnus told her as Alec held up the first glove so he could slide his hand into it. He didn't protest the help. Better to avoid any strain now and leave it all for the battle that was sure to come later tonight.

*

_October 31 st, 2016, half an hour to midnight_

The cars were parked in a neat row in front of the houses overlooking the park that belonged to the Gale family. They'd been charmed on and around, as had the doors and windows to the buildings – with an extra layer of charms on the one into which Joe, Michael and Brian had disappeared.

It was about half an hour to midnight when their little procession set out into the park.

The Gale men were all sporting antlers to different degrees, though not one of those racks was remotely as impressive as the one David had worn the night before.

Alec found himself surreptitiously touching his hair to make sure he wasn't growing any of his own. He wasn't sure why the idea of carrying a set of metaphysical horns felt stranger than knowing that within a few minutes, all of these people would be naked around him.

No, actually, he did know. It was that animal parts and human parts being mixed was the mark of a warlock, and having that on himself would have been … well, weird. He mentally called himself to order and kept his hand by his side.

David was waiting at the top of the rise, looking, if anything, even less human than he had the night before.

A group of men and women dressed in black so dark they seemed to merge with the night was waiting for them some way down the slope.

It took Alec a moment to recognize Elessar, who hadn’t bothered with his glamor at all. He was armed with a bow and the blade of a Seelie knight, as were most of the people around him.

The man hovering by his shoulder was not. He wasn't wearing a glamour either, and he looked like a bad imitation of a human. His jeans and leather jacket looked very uncomfortable on the angles of his body. That was probably because they weren't made for that particular body shape. Alec wasn't sure what kind of creature he was, exactly.

"Glashtin," Jack suddenly said behind him, as if reading his thoughts – though he had probably only followed his line of sight and drawn conclusions from his confused expression.

Alec shook his head slightly. "What's a Glashtin? Some kind of demon?"

"If you insist on calling everything a demon that isn't either Court or was born by a human mother, then yes." Jack sounded amused.

"Think meat-eating horse," Magnus was close enough that Alec could feel the air stirring by his ear as he spoke.

"More importantly, he's Elessar's bodyguard," Jack added. "Also, he doesn't like me."

Turning to look at him, Alec noticed that Jack wasn't showing any antlers either. He, too, had dropped the glamor. Half-human that he was, the lines of his face looked a little more familiar than those of the Seelie, or would have if it hadn't been for the hint of golden scales winking in and out of existence.

With Elessar and Auntie Bea still deep in conversation, the Glashtin bodyguard ambled over to them, baring his teeth at Jack in a mockery of a smile. "Consorting with the poultry, Wyrm?" he asked, not even making an effort to keep his voice more pleasant than his words.

Jack gave him the sweetest smile his unglamored face was capable of. It was made somewhat more predatory than it could have been by exposing dentition too large and pointed for the surrounding features. "Angels are friends, not food," he returned evenly.

The Glashtin's laugh sounded like a whinny. "You wouldn't say that if you'd ever met one."

Any response they might have had to that was cut short by a sharp clap of hands from both their generals. It was only a few minutes to midnight now.

As the Glashtin retreated to his spot by his employer's side, Jack pulled Alec and the others to a small area enclosed by heavy protective charms, where most of the family had already discarded their clothes.

Stepping out of his boots, Alec shivered when his bare feet touched the cold grass. It was too late in the year to be naked outside.

Strangely, the concept of _being naked outside_ was losing any horror it had held before as everyone around him stripped as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

In a way, it probably was.

Alec had planned to keep his shorts on for as long as possible, but realized that being the only one who was still wearing any scrap of fabric felt even weirder.

He carefully arranged his weapons on top of his things before he turned to let Magnus pull him away a little farther up the hill, positioning them in a spot that, to Alec, looked exactly like every other.

Magnus turned and raised one hand to cup Alec's cheek with it.

The hill and everyone on it suddenly seemed remote, like everything invariably did when Magnus was touching him. He rested one hand on his boyfriend's arm and reached out with the other to take Magnus's free one.

Their fingers linked, he wondered what was going to happen next. Were they supposed to just start?

Then midnight struck, and David changed, and he had no space for thought left as raw power slammed through him.

*

"You're with us," Charlie said, one hand on Izzy's shoulder as she steered her around to the other side of the hill. "Steve is too young and inexperienced to keep Alec off of you if he _does_ go into a rut, and Cameron's already got six of his list to take care of."

'His list', Izzy had gathered from previous conversation, was the list of potential breeding partners within the family: Bloodlines remote enough that no issues were to be expected, and within the fourteen-year age bracket the family accepted for relationships. Ritual may have permitted deviations, but the 'list' still appeared to get first dibs.

Katie and Jack were waiting for them.

Izzy glanced around. "Cameron gets six and Jack has three? Isn't that unfair?"

"Cameron would say so," Katie said. "He was forever complaining when he was the only third circle male and responsible for getting all of us satisfied."

"Wait." Izzy blinked as she processed that. "You're not saying Cameron is capable of … six … or more …" She'd thought she was experienced, but in her _experience_ , the vast majority of men needed a break after finishing once.

Charlie laughed. "In ritual, he can as often as he needs to," she said. "And then it used to take days before he was able to walk comfortably again, even with charms. I think he's quite happy that Katie and I are no longer part of his duty."

"So wouldn't it be fair if you took over more of the cousins, Jack?" Izzy asked. The conversation and the matter-of-fact way the others handled themselves almost made her forget she was standing on an exposed hill stark naked.

"Dragon," Jack said. "I'm literally too hot for most of them."

Izzy felt her eyes grow wide, and saw the other two women smirk slightly in response.

"Don't worry," Katie said in a tone that probably was supposed to be reassuring. "We'll make sure he doesn't roast you."

Something moved above them. A second later, a wave of power hit, running through her and tearing her along into a place Izzy had never expected to enter. She wasn't precisely sure whose hands were on her body, and she wasn't always sure whose body her hands were on. For now, it didn't matter.

*

_October 31 st/November 1st, 2016, Midnight_

Cameron had braced for the impact of power that he welcomed and dreaded at the same time.

He'd been second in the ranking of the school-aged Gale males back East where he'd grown up, after his younger cousin Dmitri had challenged him, fought him and beaten him. He still had the scars to show from it.

When the family had split, he had been the Aunties' choice as a third-circle male to send West. He knew that meant they thought he was powerful – dominant – enough to keep a third circle together, but not too great a loss for the remaining family. He wouldn't have stood a chance of taking over third circle there entirely, and he wasn't sure he would have ever tried.

He'd decided to take the first part of the reasoning and ignore the second, and had taken up his responsibilities with an enthusiasm that lasted exactly as long as it took for the euphoria to wear off after his first ritual in Calgary, and the pain to kick in. Male bodies weren't made for that much effort.

He'd spent the next months in a perpetually exhausted state as cousins from his list came and went, in the way Gale cousins did when they were trying each other out so they could settle on a permanent partner. Except before this, there always had been a number of boys around, and no one ended up with more than he could handle even with the Gale gender ratio skewed as much as it was in favor of girls.

As the only third-circle male in Calgary, he had had to learn to impose limits so he could actually get any studying done – never mind other things he wanted to do with his time.

Ritual knew no such things as a cap.

He had anchored third circle for about six years now, with Charlie, with Katie, and with Melissa, like he did today. He'd handled the wild power contributed by Charlie, and more recently the raw fire that was Jack.

Today, the power shooting up around him was more than he had ever imagined himself trying to wrestle under control.

Gale power, nephilim power, dragon power, warlock power – it all merged, spinning into and around each other, becoming more than the total of its parts.

Becoming, if not more than he was able to handle, then certainly more than he was willing to.

Even as he started feeding the first strands of it in Allie's direction, trusting to her to pick them up if his aim was off, he realized that he was going to pay for this with more than just a few days of sore parts.

Melissa, her arms wrapped around him as they moved together, was doing what she could to buffer the impact of the metaphysical hammer bearing down on them.

"We need to pass on," Cameron ground out. He already felt a pounding start in his temples, and he knew there was more power slipping from his grip than they could afford to on this night of all.

She didn't protest. If anything, he thought he felt relief wash up against him.

Pass on – but to whom? Steve would be swamped even by a fraction of that power. Jack had made it abundantly clear he didn't want the position, and even in his current overwhelmed state, instinct boosted by the energy surging up from the earth beneath them was far too strong to let him consider voluntarily handing the metaphysical reins of the circle to the one male who could easily, if he so chose, assert total and permanent dominance.

That left only one choice. Melissa had already come to the same conclusion, as she spun Cameron around and pointed him at Alec.

He charged.

*

Even through the wild, exhilarating rush, Alec spotted something big hurtling towards him from the corner of his eye.

More than a decade of perpetual training took over and he spun, out of Magnus' arms and away from him, meeting the attack head-on.

He felt the rush of air as tips of antlers barely missed raking his side.

Cameron whipped around, slashing, and there was no doubt left that those racks were more than purely metaphysical appearances tonight, when one of its points connected and tore his skin, leaving behind a line welling with dark red.

Deep inside, Alec felt a response that he knew came more from the power that used him as an outlet than from himself. It made him want to lash out at his attacker, bring him down, kill him…

Magnus' presence wrapped around him, though they were no longer physically touching, holding him, grounding him close enough to his own self that he didn't fully give in to the urge. Even as he surged back to his feet after rolling out of the way of the attack, he had regained enough control to meet the next charge with a warrior's controlled response, rather than the wildness of stags fighting for dominance.

He jumped, and kicked, the impact running through his entire body as if he had just hit a brick wall.

Cameron was thrown back, landing flat on the ground, the wind knocked out of him.

Before he could even start to gather his wits, Alec was on top of him. One knee planted firmly on the other man's chest, he put his hand flat against Cameron's throat to keep his head - and those razor-sharp antlers – down.

Surprisingly, there the ghost of a smile appeared on the defeated man's face as he met Alec's eyes.

"Take the circle. Gather the power and send it to Allie." His voice was low and breathless.

There was no time to wonder what Cameron meant or how he was even supposed to do that. Something snapped between them, and Alec felt a surge of power thrust into his hands – metaphysically speaking.

The impact threw him back physically, leaving Cameron free to scramble to his feet. He didn't try to rush Alec again, however, but merely turned and was swallowed up by the group of Gale cousins he had been busy with before.

Gather the power and send it to Allie? _How?_ There was so much of it, and it washed over him and threatened to sweep him away with it, tossing him this way and that without letting him get a foothold, let alone any kind of grasp on it.

How was he ever supposed to guide that anywhere? How was anyone?

Then Magnus' arms were around him, physically and metaphysically, holding him, anchoring him on firm ground, helping him sort the power and, if not tame it, then at least soothe it a little to feed a steady stream of it to Allie.

There was more of it, though, ever more, and as he moved against Magnus, Alec tried to reel it in, encompassing as much of the flow as he was able to reach.

Another day, in any other situation, he would have been terrified. Terrified of the sheer power coursing through him, terrified of losing himself in the rush, horrifying and thrilling to equal extents.

Here, there was Magnus, a steady anchor gently keeping him from losing himself.

As the power around and inside him grew ever more, he felt himself lifted by it, carried towards something not alike anything he had ever felt or even heard about before. It was a state of being, more than a location, and although he didn't know what precisely it was, it felt right.

A little push, he thought. A little push was all he would need to get there.

He could feel all of third circle now. He was all of third circle, though he was also Alec.

He could tell each of them apart, the Gales sinking roots deeper and deeper into the soil at their feet, Jack a roaring fire barely contained within human skin, and Izzy soaring with him. Magnus was a bright, steady light he could use as a homing beacon from anywhere.

A little push. No more than that.

Second circle was an echo, fainter and less detailed, but still there. Clary and Jace were straining towards the same place he was going, but moving more slowly since they were lacking his boost.

He wasn’t afraid that his connection to the world might break. Not with Magnus keeping him attached to the park. There was no way he could ever lose Magnus.

Then a second force kicked in, stopping his progress with a sudden, painful yank.

Magnus' hold on him had been a reassuring grip, holding firmly but not restraining.

This was a stark, brutal force that made him gasp for air as it took hold of him, locking him in place. He felt its grip all over his body.

No.

He felt it in his runes.

It was reeling him in, pulling him away from his goal, by every rune inscribed in his skin. It wasn't painful, at least not after the first moment, except where the enkeli was placed on his left arm.

For a moment, he thought he was falling.

Before panic could set in, the impression corrected itself: He was _sinking_ , moving in a controlled descent that deposited his self firmly in the circle described by Magnus' arms.

The circles were still there in his perception. He felt Izzy shudder as she hit the same barrier; he felt the moment when Jace did it through their parabatai bond. Clary was only a suggestion in his mind, but he was sure she fared no different.

Through it all, he had never stopped siphoning the energy that welled up from third circle to that bright, steady presence that was Allie, anchored by the rock of Graham's self around her much in the same way Magnus was holding Alec in place, in the way Melissa had previously held Cameron.

Allie caught the stream easily, holding it, wielding it, dividing it and sending it on:

One part back down into the earth, anchoring her family deeper and more firmly in Calgary than ever before;

One part on to the Aunties, to use as they saw fit;

One part into the wards prepared around them, leaving them charged so they would only need to be activated;

One part straight to Magnus, charging his internal supply of magic beyond anything Alec could have imagined, until the warlock was shining so brightly in this vision that he had to tune down his power perception for fear of burning a permanent impression into his mind.

*

_November 1 st, 2016, after midnight_

The rush of power ebbed eventually, and though it felt like it had been going on for an eternity, Alec realized that no more than half an hour could have passed since David had slipped entirely into the shape of the white stag.

One by one they came to rest, parting and pulling out of the tide, until Alec was completely alone again in his mind, with only the ever-present sensation of Jace and a faint echo of Magnus that he was going to hold on to for as long as he could remaining.

He was breathing as heavily as everyone around him. Although his skin was glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, he didn't feel cold even in the night air.

While the flow of power through him had ceased, he was still filled with it, all senses just as alert as if all his enhancement runes had been activated, and more.

Allie stood where she had been all along, Graham now behind her and with his arms encircling her as if he had to physically keep her from being torn from his grasp. She had not let go of the power, holding in as much of it as would fit inside her.

It turned out that a great lot of power fit inside Allie, and Alec found himself suddenly glad that they were fighting on the same side.

Some of the men's antlers had dissipated. Others were still visible as people started to move, going to quickly throw on some clothes.

It wasn't even so much a matter of a sudden concern with decency, Alec noted to himself when he buttoned his jeans and slammed his feet into his boots. It was that they were still expecting action tonight, and even the little protection clothing could afford them would be welcome.

As if on cue, the wind carried in the sounds of bells and barking, and over it all, the rhythmic flap of large wings on the air.

*

Alec had his bow ready and an arrow at the string. Clary and Jace stood by his side, each holding two blades, the adamas shining under the nephilim's touch. Izzy had her whip snapped into its staff shape.

Magnus was poised like a dancer, magic sparkling around both his hands.

Charlie's sisters were armed, standing ready with determined expressions. Today wasn't the time for a flashy show. This was business.

He could feel, rather than see or hear the Seelie knights moving in place, ready to join what was coming.

In a nod to cliché that almost made him choke for a moment, the Aunties had mounted broomsticks and were now circling, small sparks of magic above their heads.

David stood motionless, white fur and antlers shining in the moonless night.

The vanguard arrived, and it looked hungry.

The portal started to glow in an eerie sheen that gave no light and cast no shadows, and yet was clearly visible against the dark of the night.

In an ideal world, the demon horde coming in would have just walked through, kept inside a series of wards, and into the portal that would take them back home. Allie had thought she would be able to key it to their signatures and return them whence they'd come from.

However, the world was not ideal, and the issue with the portal was that a breach of that kind always worked both ways. Opening a door to let in whatever else might be lurking on the other side, like a blanket invitation to their world for a long as the army passed, was not their solution of choice.

The first one of the demons fell out of line, snarling as it tried to rush one of the Gale women and found it had underestimated the opponent when a charm prepared and ready set it on fire. It burned, hot and bright, and left behind no more than a small pile of ash before the flames could catch on anything else.

As if that had been a signal, the lines broke, creatures roughly humanoid but not human, some riding on creatures that were, by a similar token, not horses, fanned out to be met by the combined power of the freshly charged group on the hill.

Alec fired, relying on instinct and focusing on the spots most likely to cause the demons to disintegrate.

The flapping grew louder, and, looking up, he could see a creature very much like the one drawn in the book glide in, enormous wings beating once in a while to keep it going. He could feel the movement in the air caused by those wings, and smell the reek of rot and decay carried on every gust.

If the stench was enough to make them want to recoil, the sheer feeling of horror exuded by the beast's rider was infinitely worse.

The nephilim didn't falter, though they felt it, and it took all of them an exertion of will to ignore it and advance.

Magnus had launched two fireballs in quick succession at the center of the oncoming column, and directed a third one up, where it burst against the flying creature's hide without leaving as much as a scorch mark.

So much for that.

At least it seemed that Magnus had more than the two or three spells he had expected his hands would survive. A bolt of red shot from his palm, mowing down one of the approaching creatures.

Before any of the Gales could do more than take a single step back under the terror that swept over them, Charlie's guitar sounded across the park, louder than any instrument should have been out here.

The music caught them, bolstered them, and they stood their ground.

Jack hadn't bothered to dress. He had only moved a little way to the side so he could change without slamming into anyone. Now a large, golden dragon launched itself at the general's flying mount, throwing it off course with the first impact.

It only took a few moments to steady itself, however. As soon as it had regained its bearings, it went after its attacker.

Daylight sprang up as wards were activated. It cut a swath through some of the troops, while others seemed entirely unperturbed by it.

Jace was a blur of slashing swords and kicking feet, moving so fast he could have almost been mistaken for a demon himself.

Clary sunk one sword into an attacker's chest and slashed another one across the throat with her other, ducking the spray of acid blood that followed a moment too late. She yelped as droplets sprayed her, leaving behind small blisters where they hit.

Izzy was fighting off three at once, and winning.

Alec had no idea where Charlie's sisters had gotten to, but his enhanced hearing made out their cries of victory every now and then, suggesting they were still up and fighting.

Bolts of light and magic and lightning rained down from above, though those were ricochets from the Aunties taking care of the flying part of the demons up there, rather than aimed attacks.

The flying part of the demons _sans_ one, that was, since the general's creature was grappling with Jack in the air now. Dragon and demon were matched in size, and the demon's neck was longer, and more flexible, than Jack's.

Still, it didn't seem to find it easy to penetrate dragon scales, and Jack had the benefit of breathing fire and being muscled for carrying away large prey, where his opponent was built for speed.

Alec let his last arrow fly and discarded the bow, switching it for swords of his own.

The Seelie were spread out through the fray, weaving in and out between the demons as their blades slashed and hacked, or calmly shooting down one by one. Some of them were laughing as if all of this was nothing but a great entertainment set up solely for their benefit.

A trio of horse-shaped Seelie with hooves of steel and teeth that would have looked more natural in a bear's jaw were relentlessly trampling one of the demons into the ground before swerving to round in on another target. With a look at their bloody teeth and hungry eyes, visible for moments in the flashes of magic and fire, Alec decided he was going to put glashtin on the list of creatures not to anger.

Magnus was still shooting magic, his face firmly set against the pain it had to be causing him.

Allie was putting all that power she'd been left with to use for one thing: Containing the general, now standing on the hill with them.

They were both locked in place, the magic between them crackling and burning anything to dust that was careless enough to walk or let itself be hurled into their line of fire.

The flying mount dropped, and Jack swerved into a victorious loop, trailing flame and reducing a group of demon soldiers to ash before swooping down onto his previous opponent to finish it off on the ground.

The general roared in a wordless scream.

Charlie's music held, but barely.

It made Alec think. There still were many of the enemy around them, but they were all just garnish. A distraction. They could kill every single one of them, but if the general remained alive, they would have failed.

He reversed direction, spinning to fight his way closer to that demon. Swerving, rolling and jumping, he evaded as many attacks as he countered.

A bolt of magic slammed into a demon dangerously close by his side, telling him that Magnus had caught on to what he was doing.

At one point, Alec almost collided with David, whose hooves and antlers were blood-streaked. Unsure of whether David would be able to tell friend from foe after their conversation the night before, he put in an extra burst of speed to race away.

Then he was, not precisely face to face with the general, but right behind him. The book hadn't said anything about the location of his demon core. Stabbing through where the heart was usually found helped often, but not always.

At a split-second decision, he went for the other solution, whipping his arm up and around at the last possible moment as he switched from stab to slash in mid-jump, putting all the power that he could convert from his momentum into the movement.

The demon general's head went flying, and Alec hit the ground hard, rolled over his shoulder and came back to his feet. His arm felt bruised from the impact, his hand momentarily numb on the sword.

The headless body was still moving, though sluggishly. Was it trying to find its head without seeing where it was?

Three quick steps took him back to it and, using the blade in his other hand, Alec avoided the risk of injuring himself further by stabbing into some internal power core. Instead, he lowered his sword and drew its tip over the fallen creature's pale skin where the robe-like garment it was wearing had fallen away. A focus, a power source, and intent. A Fire charm drawn in the demon's ichor, fuelled by the power Alec was still filled with from ritual.

Only a quick jump backwards saved him from being caught in the pillar of flame that shot up straight into the air.

The demon continued to twitch for another few seconds, but the flames burned hot and had soon consumed enough of it to end its presence on this plane.

With the drain on her power from the battle with the demon general gone, Allie rerouted her magic, slamming it into the wards prepared around the hill for that purpose.

The remaining demons were locked in now, kept from dispersing back into Calgary or hiding in the park.

They, of course, were locked in with them, but with their commander gone, the enemy lost their purpose and direction. They were still fighting, but the concerted movements were quickly lost, leaving them with a number of solitary demons each fighting on its own.

It didn't take long to take care of that.

*

The last of the demons were gone, and their bodies fallen to dust. All that remained for them to do was to clean up the battlefield.

Amazingly, they hadn't had any fatalities on their side, though most of them were bloodied to some degree. They'd been lucky, Alec thought, that they had all been able to go into that battle charged to the brim with fresh energy. He didn't want to imagine the slaughter this would have become if they'd had less power on their side.

Allie was still standing in her place, using the power that remained in her grasp to heal their wounded. Alec and his friends were helping deal with the smaller injuries, generously dispensing iratzes. Jace had put one on Alec's shoulder first thing when he'd caught a hold of his _parabatai_ , relieving the impact damage considerably.

The soothing touch of Allie's magic took care of the rest of it, though neither Jace nor Allie did anything about the minor scrapes and strains.

Well, those he could ignore easily enough.

Most of the Seelie had dispersed as soon as the wards had gone down and their wounded been healed. Only Elessar and two others who had been designated to fill in the spots of drivers if necessary remained.

Once all the larger work was done, Allie let the last remnants of excess power drain through David, who pivoted on his hind legs and raced off into the night.

 


	19. Chapter 19

_November 1 st, 2016, very early morning_

The Gales had left only once the park was sufficiently cleaned up to not raise undue questions among the people who came visiting it the next day.

In spite of the hour, Alec was still feeling wide awake, the power coursing through his body making him hum with energy. The others seemed to feel the same way. Some of the men were still showing a suggestion of antlers.

They didn't drive home from the park.

Instead, the cars stopped in front of the large house on Mount Royal, and before long the family was gathered around the pool behind the building, helping themselves to well-deserved pie prepared in advance.

As it turned out, the pool was heated.

After what they had done earlier that night, it didn’t seem as strange as it could have when Izzy and Jace simply stripped like several of the Gales did and jumped into the water with them.

For the moment, Alec had something else on his mind.

He wandered over to where Magnus had made himself comfortable in a deck chair, bathing his hands in ice water. Amazingly enough, almost all of the magical sutures had held up, though his fingers looked badly swollen and painful after all the exertion, and his hands felt hot to the touch.

Still, Magnus smiled as Alec approached and settled by his side.

"Don't you want to take a swim?" he asked.

Alec shook his head, holding up a piece of pie on his fork and offering it to Magnus, who didn't need any further invitation.

"Later, maybe."

For a little while they sat in silence, sharing lemon meringue pie and watching as everyone around them tried to burn off as much energy as they needed to find some rest.

Alec's thoughts went back to that moment in ritual when he'd felt his core drawn upwards, and stopped so unpleasantly. The others had felt it, too. There had been something – something they had been supposed to reach, and that they'd been kept from. "Magnus…" His voice was low, the word trailing off almost as if he didn't intend to continue.

Magnus waited in silence, letting him come to a decision on whether he wanted to pursue the thing on his mind any further.

After another moment, he did. "What are we?"

"I don't know, Alexander." He turned his head to meet his partner's eyes. "But I'll do all in my power to help you find out if that's what you want."

Alec nodded, once, briefly. How could he not want that?

He heaved a sigh at the thought, however. There were a lot of things they needed to find out about.

*

_November 1 st, 2016, evening_

They'd slept, and eaten, and would have liked to put the inevitable off some more, but knew that they really shouldn't.

Following a long discussion, they had decided against going back in time. They had worked out a legend that they were going to tell to explain their extended absence. Neither of them carried their stele. They were leaving those behind for the aunties to study, and hopefully make some sense of.

The clothes they wore were Jack-made, replicas of what they'd been wearing when they had been taken, or as close as they could describe it. It should be close enough to pass inspection when they returned.

"We'll want you back for ritual in spring," Auntie Bea told them as they prepared to depart. "Earth, Fire and Air in one ritual – think of the things we can do with that kind of power when we don't have an army of miscreants to fight!"

"Think of what we could do with the power if Charlotte could talk some of her selkie friends into joining," Auntie Gwen added, her eyes shining. "Earth, Fire, Air _and_ Water in one ritual!"

Going by the dreamy expression that brought to the other old woman's face, Alec could already imagine her attempts at talking Charlie into taking steps to that end.

"Wish it'd be that easy," Alec said. "I don't know if we'd be able to get away."

"Oh, I am sure we will think of something," Bea said.

Unsurprisingly, Alec didn't have the least doubt that they did.

"We'll let you know as soon as we have any lead on what to do about your little fading problem," Gwen promised.

"How will you do that?" Jace had stepped behind Alec, listening in on most of the conversation. "You can't just call the institute."

"But we can call you." Bea waved one hand, and Joe came over, carrying what looked like a number of messenger bags dangling by their straps.

Alec frowned. "What's that?"

"They're for you," the Auntie noted, her tone suggesting that it should have been obvious.

"Think of it as a Gale starter set," Charlie suggested. She had her guitar tuned and ready to take them into the Wood and back to New York already.

Taking the bag he was offered, Alec opened it to look inside. His eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of what he saw.

"Wow," he heard Izzy breathe behind him.

"Are these pocket universes?" Alec asked, pointing. They certainly held a lot more than should fit inside a bag that size, including what looked suspiciously like a rolled-up Gale quilt.

Joe gave him a happy grin. "Not really," he said, "But from the same kind of maker. They're just large."

"Well, they're large on the inside," Clary noted. Rummaging around a bit, she pulled out a phone and a stele. She held up the latter. "Weren't you going to keep these?"

The Auntie laughed, holding out her hand for the object, and, once she held it, rubbing a finger across the handle in a pattern they were quite used to by now. A moment later, she was holding a thick black text marker instead. "Thought you might have fewer questions to answer that way. Just don't let anyone handle your 'steles'," she suggested, fixing up the glamour she'd removed and handing the shiny silver rod back to the young woman.

The phones – like the quilts and the steles, there was one in each of their bags, with the exception of Magnus' where the stele was concerned – were the same cheap brand that everyone in the Gale family seemed to use.

"Gale phones," Charlie elaborated. "The Aunties will be able to call you anywhere. You'll be able to call us from anywhere. You'll be able to call each other from anywhere. They never lose reception, they don't run on a contract, you get free internet, and the best thing: Barring exposure to dragon fire they don't break, and they always come back to you, no matter where you leave them."

The last was said in an odd tone, as if that wasn't necessarily a desirable trait in a phone.

Jace laughed as he lifted a number of books out of his bag, one by one, just far enough to look at the titles.

"Yeah, we'll want those back," the Bard told him. "Call it incentive to return. Now, if you don't mind? We ought to get going."

"Put the pennies in a fridge before there's pie in the bags," Auntie Gwen advised.

"I fear Magnus will have to take the bags for the moment," Alec determined, slipping his phone, glamored stele and penny into the pockets of his clothes instead. "We wouldn't be able to explain where they come from."

"Oh, alright," Magnus declared, the grin on his face belying the long-suffering tone he used. "I shall take care of your luggage. I'm sure it will be perfectly safe at the loft until you retrieve it." He held out a hand gloved in fine black leather to conceal his scars until he could get rid of them. He'd insisted that with the quality charmwork on them, his hands were perfectly fine for limited use, and refused to allow a return to the more restrictive bandaging the aunties would have preferred to put on him.

Jace was holding up his text marker, studying it closely. "You know," he said, "Maybe if we put on glamors ourselves, we could just keep the charms we're wearing. It's not like this thing is able to apply or activate any runes."

"It's not like I want to apply or activate any runes," Izzy muttered. Certainly not after what they'd felt in ritual. At least not until they knew more about that.

"Valentine posed as Michael Wayland for years without anyone seeing through the glamor," Jace continued before anyone could protest. "If we glamor ourselves as ourselves, that should be safe enough."

Alec nodded.

Charlie sighed, putting down her guitar again. "Let me know when you're ready."

*

Half an hour later, their party emerged in an empty alley behind a pub from which music was playing, audible just loudly enough for Charlie to use as an exit point.

"Call me as soon as it's safe," Magnus told Alec, pulling him close for a moment as if afraid that letting them return to the Institute was not a very good idea at all.

Alec hugged him back, nodding in a silent promise.

Then, with a quick good-bye to the Bard who had brought them home, they split, Magnus heading for his loft while the four nephilim went to report their return to an unsuspecting Institute.

 

_The Beginning_

 


	20. Annex

**Annex**

**List of Persons**

**Gales**

Alysha Catherine "Allie" Gale

| 

The Gale's female anchor in Calgary; 31 years old in 2016; most powerful Gale woman in living memory.  
  
---|---  
  
Ashley Gale

| 

Third-circle Gale cousin; Carrie's twin and Charlie's younger sister; self-proclaimed vampire hunter  
  
Beatrice "Auntie Bea" Gale

| 

One of the four Gale aunties in Calgary.  
  
Carmen "Auntie Carmen" Gale

| 

One of the four Gale aunties in Calgary; Roland's Grandmother  
  
Caroline "Carrie" Gale

| 

Third-circle Gale cousin; Ashley's twin and Charlie's younger sister; self-proclaimed vampire hunter  
  
Charlotte Marie "Charlie" Gale

| 

A Gale Wild Power; Bard; 33 years old in 2016; can travel through the Wood; has limited time-travelling abilities.  
  
David Edward Gale

| 

The Gale family's anchor in Calgary; Allie's older brother; 35 years old in 2016. Turns into a white stag and lives mostly in Nose Hill Park.  
  
Elessar

| 

One of the Court who attends the University of Calgary – mostly for the basketball team  
  
Graham Buchanan

| 

Allie's husband; seventh son of a seventh son; runs a tabloid; former assassin; metaphysically incapable of missing anything.  
  
Gwendolyn "Auntie Gwen" Gale

| 

One of the four Gale aunties in Calgary. Family alchemist.  
  
Jack Archibald Gale

| 

A Gale Wild Power; half Gale, half dragon; sorcerer; part-time journalist; 39 years old in 2016. Doesn't like onions.  
  
Joe O'Hallon

| 

Leprechaun, though a little tall for one; works in the store; wears a mid-thirties glamor; Auntie Gwen's husband. Works in the magic store.  
  
Katie Gale

| 

One of the third-circle Gale cousins; real-estate agent.  
  
Lucy Gale

| 

Second-circle Gale cousin; Lyla's mother  
  
Lyla Gale

| 

Gale girl; 10 years old in 2016  
  
Meredith "Auntie Meredith" Gale

| 

Gale Auntie; lives east; makes a mean basilisk pie.  
  
Peggi Gale

| 

Second-circle Gale cousin; pharmacist.  
  
Rayne Gale

| 

Second-circle Gale cousin; Lyla's mother  
  
Roland Edward Gale

| 

Second-circle Gale cousin; family lawyer; lives on Mount Royal with his daughter and her mothers.  
  
Trisha Gale

| 

One of the four Gale aunties in Calgary.  
  
**Nephilim and Associates**

Alexander "Alec" Lightwood

| 

Nephilim from the New York Institute  
  
---|---  
  
Clarissa "Clary" Fairchild

| 

Nephilim from the New York Institute  
  
Isabelle "Izzy" Lightwood

| 

Nephilim from the New York Institute  
  
Jonathan Christopher "Jace" Herondale

| 

Nephilim from the New York Institute  
  
Magnus Bane

| 

High Warlock of Brooklyn  
  
**Glossary of Terms**

Gale terminology

| 

Shadowhunter terminology

| 

   
  
---|---|---  
  
Anchor

| 

 

| 

The focus point of any group of Gales.  
  
Auntie

| 

 

| 

Post-menopausal Gale woman; powerful and dangerous; can be recognized by the black irises.  
  
Charms

| 

Runes

| 

Symbols drawn or otherwise produced to anchor/represent a spell / achieve an effect; generally positively connotation  
  
Circles

| 

 

| 

The different levels of power in the Gale family.  
  
First Circle

| 

The most powerful of the circles. Reserved for the family's male anchor and the Aunties. A minimum of three aunties is required for a first circle. Twelve are called a "full" first circle.  
  
Second Circle

| 

Gales in permanent fertile relationships, single Gales who have procreated.  
  
Third Circle

| 

Young, unattached Gales without offspring, non-fertile Gales who are not aunties.  
  
Courts

| 

Seelie

| 

Ruling class in the Underrealm/Seelie Realm  
  
Gate

| 

Portal

| 

A dimensional doorway that allows travelling without losing time.  
  
Hex

| 

Curse

| 

A charm drawn by a sorcerer; generally negative connotation  
  
Underrealm

| 

Seelie Realm

| Home dimension of many non-human species  
  
Wild Power

| 

 

| 

A Gale whose powers fall outside of the ordinary range of family abilities  
  
**Locations**

**Underrealm/Seelie Realm;**

Ruled by the seelie/fey courts; natural habitat of dragons, leprechauns and assorted other creatures. Also referred to as "Under the Hill"

**The Wood**

Dimension through which travelling to various planes/dimensions/realms is possible. Time does not exist in the Wood.

 

**Species Index**

Dragons: Large, fire-breathing reptiles; Dragon Lords can use human forms in which scale color converts to eye color. Highly territorial, generally fatal.

Glashtin: Irish (water) spirit that takes the form of a horse. Likes to eat people.

Leprechaun: Species of fey; good with numbers/accounting.

Loireag: Water spirit of Irish origin. Lives in rivers, likes to drown people.

Nephilim: Human/angel

Warlock: Human/demon; magical powers, sterile

 

 

**Charlie's Playlist:**

Chapter 1:          Evanescence: Bring me to Life

Chapter 6:          Within Temptation: Hand of Sorrow

Chapter 8:          Camouflage: Love is a Shield

Chapter 10:        Razorlight: Wire to Wire

                          Johnny Cash: Ring of Fire

Chapter 11:        Extreme Music: Bring me Back to Life

 

**Media referenced**

The Gales love to quote from media, so here's the list of things they quote from or refer to in this story:

The Curse of the Black Pearl

J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter Series

Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time

George Orwell: 1984

Karin Slaughter: the Will Trent Books

Finding Nemo

Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman: Good Omens

 

Mentioned by Magnus in Chapter 13, though not in the form of a book reference, is Roland from Tanya Huff's Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light

**Gale TV**

In addition to mentions of/quotes from Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Nemo, the TV in the Gales' living room is playing:

Chapter 2:          Game of Thrones

Chapter 16:        Star Wars

**So what about the socks Auntie Bea is knitting?**

****

_Auntie Bea's knitting basket_

 

Yes! The socks actually exist, and they were knit by my dear friend Tao.  

She's kindly agreed to share the knitting patterns she made for these ultimate feet-warming rune/charm-socks in case anyone wants to make them part of their own knitting repertoire.

Message from her:

_"If you intend to use these charts for a project of your own, please take the following into account:_

_(1) These charts are meant to be knit. As a knit stitch is wider than it is high, I adjusted the runes to compensate for the difference. The charts were made for stitches that are three-quarters as high as they are wide. If you'd like to use the charts for other handicrafts (crocheting, embroidering, etc.) you may need to adjust the charts accordingly._

_(2) These charts are meant to be knit from the bottom up or from the top down. If you knit them from left to right or vice versa, switching rows and columns, the proportions won't be right (see (1) for the reason)._

_(3) I knit the runes as intarsia, which are usually knit flat (in rows). This video (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--x-nvICTF8>) showed me a way to knit intarsia in the round. It's in German, but there are a lot of helpful videos available. Just type "knit intarsia in the round" into YouTube to find English tutorials._

_That said, have fun knitting!_

_TanteTao"_

   

_Fireproof / Heat_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Winds of Change (Series cover)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13336005) by [greeniron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeniron/pseuds/greeniron)
  * [Autumn Storms (Cover art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13336056) by [greeniron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeniron/pseuds/greeniron)




End file.
